104 MICHAEL ANGELO, A PHILOSOPHIC POET.

to it: they are useful, in common with all other aids, in strengthening the intellect by exercising its faculties: they are, above all, useful, as they prepare the mind for a firmer hold upon higher truths and stronger hopes. Those who most deeply feel the value of Christianity, who in their hearts and lives embrace and endeavour to act up to its laws, will feel that in this alone is our faith perfected, and our highest obligations and hopes are fixed. At the same time, in whatever shape truth and holiness present themselves, they are sanctified as aids to our virtue and our enlightenment; in accomplishing this intent they fulfil a holy office, and in proportion as they enlarge and raise the powers of the mind, they increase the moral obligations of man.

Similmente la tua gran beltade,

Ch' esempio è di quel ben che 'l ciel fa adorno,

Mostroci in terra dall' Artista eterno,

Venendo men col tempo, e con l' etade,

Tanto avrà più nel mio soggiorno,

Pensando al bel ch' età non cangia, o verno.

TRANSLATIONS.

66

Canzone, io credo che saranno radi

Color che tua ragione intendan bene,
Tanto lor parli faticosa e forte;
Onde se per ventura egli addiviene
Che tu dinanzi da persone vadi,

Che non ti pajan d' essa bene accorte,
Allor ti priego che ti riconforte,
Dicendo lor, diletta mia novella,

Ponete mente almen com' io son bella."

(DANTE.)

Per fido esempio alla mia vocazione.

BEAUTY was given at my birth to serve
As my vocation's faithful exemplar,
The light and mirror of two sister arts :
Who otherwise believes in judgement errs.
She alone lifts the eye up to that height
For which I strive, to sculpture and to paint.
O rash and blind the judgement that diverts
To sense the Beauty which in secret moves
And raises each sound intellect to Heaven!
No eye infirm the interval may pass

From mortal to divine, nor thither rise

Where without grace to' ascend the thought is vain.

La vita del mio amor non è cuor mio.

My heart is not the life-seat of my love;
The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;
Turn'd thither where affection cannot be
Mortal, of error full, nor guilty thought.
Love, in the parting of the soul from God,
Did make me a sound eye, and splendour thee,
Which my desire must needs discern in thee
Even in that which through our frailty dies.
As warmth from cold, so is the Beautiful
Inseparate from the' Eternal; all which thence
Descends, and wears its semblance, my thoughts exalt.
Perceiving Paradise within thine eyes,

Burning with love I seek again thy brows,

There to return where first I loved thee.