To Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli. Urbino.

A poem by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Per croce e grazia.


God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied,
Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know:
Yet ere we yield our breath, on earth below
Why need a little solace be denied?

Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide
Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow
Can make the soul her ancient love forgo;
Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied.

Borne by these wings with thee I dwell for aye,
And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk,
Who, were he living, now perchance would be,

For so 'twas planned, thy guest as well as I:
Warned by his death another way I walk
To meet him where he waits to live with me.