The Transfiguration Of Beauty: A Dialogue With Love.

A poem by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Dimmi di grazia, amor.


Nay, prithee tell me, Love, when I behold
My lady, do mine eyes her beauty see
In truth, or dwells that loveliness in me
Which multiplies her grace a thousandfold?
Thou needs must know; for thou with her of old
Comest to stir my soul's tranquillity;
Yet would I not seek one sigh less, or be
By loss of that loved flame more simply cold.--
The beauty thou discernest, all is hers;
But grows in radiance as it soars on high
Through mortal eyes unto the soul above:
'Tis there transfigured; for the soul confers
On what she holds, her own divinity:
And this transfigured beauty wins thy love.