Religion

Sonnet XXVIII: The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty

by Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475–1564

Translated by John Addington Symonds (1878) · From Sonnets (trans. Symonds, 1878)

Religion

This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love:
The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;
Nor harbours it in any mortal part,
Where erring thought or ill desire may move.
When first Love sent our souls from God above,
He fashioned me to see thee as thou art--
Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpart
In thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof.
As heat from fire, from loveliness divine
The mind that worships what recalls the sun
From whence she sprang, can be divided never:
And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine,
Burning unto those orbs of light I run,
There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever.

MLA

Buonarroti, Michelangelo. “Sonnet XXVIII: The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty.” Translated by John Addington Symonds. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/michelangelo/28/.

Chicago

Buonarroti, Michelangelo. “Sonnet XXVIII: The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty.” Translated by John Addington Symonds. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/michelangelo/28/.

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