| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | The Transfiguration of Beauty | | By Michelangelo (1475–1564) |
| | Translated by John Addington Symonds
(A Dialogue with Love)
NAY, prithee tell me, Love, when I behold | |
| My lady, do mine eyes her beauty see | |
| In truth, or dwells that loveliness in me | |
| Which multiplies her grace a thousandfold? | |
| Thou needs must know; for thou with her of old | 5 |
| Comest to stir my soul’s tranquillity; | |
| Yet would I not seek one sigh less, or be | |
| By loss of that loved flame, more simply cold.— | |
| The beauty thou discernest, all is hers; | |
| But grows in radiance as it soars on high, | 10 |
| Through mortal eyes unto the soul above: | |
| ’Tis there transfigured; for the soul confers | |
| On what she holds, her own divinity: | |
| And this transfigured beauty wins thy love. | | | | |
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