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Michelangelo - Sonnet LXXIV - Often, I think, a great desire may
Identifier
024485
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Michelangelo – Sonnets [translated by Elizabeth Jennings]
Sonnet LXXIV
Often, I think, a great desire may
Hold out the promise of more time to me.
Yet death has power to whittle me away
The more I live and breathe delightedly.
What better time for my sure transformation
Than when I pray, in grief, to God above?
Then lead me, Lord, to my true destination,
And all my earthly cares and joys remove.
For in this way your grace assails my heart
With faith and all its strong and fervent zeal.
From such a comfort I would never part.
Alone, I shall for certain always fail:
Then plant in me that faith such as you give
To angels who, without you, cannot live.