The Poetry Corner

A Prayer To Nature. Amor Redivivus. - Second Reading.

By Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Sol perch tue bellezze. If only that thy beauties here may be Deathless through Time that rends the wreaths he twined, I trust that Nature will collect and bind All those delights the slow years steal from thee, And keep them for a birth more happily Born under better auspices, refined Into a heavenly form of nobler mind, And dowered with all thine angel purity. Ah me! and may heaven also keep my sighs, My scattered tears preserve and reunite, And give to him who loves that fair again! More happy he perchance shall move those eyes To mercy by the griefs my manhood blight, Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!