Observations placeholder
Michelangelo - Sonnet XLIX - From gloomy laughter and delicious tears
Identifier
024472
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Michelangelo – Sonnets [translated by Elizabeth Jennings]
Sonnet XLIX
From gloomy laughter and delicious tears,
From everlasting to a short-lived peace,
I've lapsed indeed. When truth breeds silences
Then sense is sovereign over truth's affairs.
I cannot say whence these misfortunes come,
Whether from me or from your face. I know
The pains are easier the more they grow.
What heaven are your piercing eyes snatched from?
Your loveliness was never meant to die,
But wrought in heaven to be released among
Men on the earth. Thus I exhausted lie,
Yet find more comfort than when close to you.
If God indeed has planned my death, then who,
When I must die, dare say that you were wrong?