Carnal And Spiritual Love. First Reading.
By Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Passa per gli occhi.
Swift through the eyes unto the heart within
All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray;
So smooth and broad and open is the way
That thousands and not hundreds enter in.
Burdened with scruples and weighed down with sin,
These mortal beauties fill me with dismay;
Nor find I one that doth not strive to stay
My soul on transient joy, or lets me win
The heaven I yearn for. Lo, when erring love--
Who fills the world, howe'er his power we shun,
Else were the world a grave and we undone--
Assails the soul, if grace refuse to fan
Our purged desires and make them soar above,
What grief it were to have been born a man!