Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume II. Love. 1904. | | | | VII. Love’s Power | | “The might of one fair face” | | Michaelangelo (1475–1564) |
| | From the Italian by John Edward Taylor
THE MIGHT of one fair face sublimes my love, | |
| For it hath weaned my heart from low desires; | |
| Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires. | |
| Thy beauty, antepast of joys above, | |
| Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve; | 5 |
| For O, how good, how beautiful, must be | |
| The God that made so good a thing as thee, | |
| So fair an image of the heavenly Dove! | |
| Forgive me if I cannot turn away | |
| From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven, | 10 |
| For they are guiding stars, benignly given | |
| To tempt my footsteps to the upward way; | |
| And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight, | |
| I live and love in God’s peculiar light. | | | | |
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