Love's Excuse.

A poem by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Dal dolcie pianto.


From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace
Eternal to a brief and hollow truce,
How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose,
Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses.
I know not if my heart bred this disease,
That still more pleasing grows with growing use;
Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the hues
And fires of Paradise--less fair than these.
Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent
From heaven on high to make our earth divine:
Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content;
For in thy sight what could I do but pine?
If God himself thus rules my destiny,
Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?