Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think
That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven
Could ever be paid by work so frail as mine.
(_Transl. by_ J.A. SYMONDS.)
And of love he says:
From loftiest stars shoots down a radiance all their own,
Drawing the soul above,
And such, we say, is love.
(_Transl. by_ HARFORD.)
His poems, which would proclaim him a great poet if he were not an even
greater sculptor, breathe an emotion unsurpassed in its intensity. They
reveal to us in an almost unique manner the emotional process which
culminated in the deification of the beloved. If we did not know that
Vittoria Colonna was an historical individual, not much younger than
Michelangelo himself, and (if we are to credit her portrait) a very
plain woman with a large masculine nose, we might be tempted to believe
her to be a mythical personage like Beatrice Portinari, or Margaret in
_Faust_.
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