No More Learning

.

MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont. ]


[Variant 2:

1827.

Which . . . 1807. ]





* * * * *





FROM THE SAME. TO THE SUPREME BEING


Translated 1804? --Published 1807


One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets. "--Ed.



III

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That [1] of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works thou art the seed, 5
That [2] quickens only where thou say'st it may.
Unless Thou shew to us thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred 10
That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of thee,
And sound thy praises everlastingly.


* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1827.

Which . . . 1807. ]


[Variant 2:

1827.

Which . . . 1807. ]



The sonnet from which the above is translated, is not wholly by Michael
Angelo, the sculptor and painter, but is taken from patched-up versions
of his poem by his nephew of the same name. Michael Angelo only wrote
the first eight lines, and these have been garbled in his nephew's
edition. The original lines are thus given by Guasti in his edition of
Michael Angelo's Poems (1863) restored to their true reading, from the
autograph MSS. in Rome and Florence.


Imperfect Sonnet transcribed from "Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti
Cavate dagli Autografi da Cesare Guasti.