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Sunday, December 06, 2020

on the same wings, these two can fly

Rosemary & Niña - 5 December 2020
 

XXXII

If love is chaste, if pity comes from heaven,

If fortune, good or ill, is shared between

Two equal loves, and if one wish can govern

Two hearts, and nothing evil intervene:

 

If one soul joins two bodies fast for ever

And if, on the same wings, these two can fly,

And if one dart of love can pierce and sever

The vital organs of both equally:

 

If both love one another with the same

Passion, and if each other’s good is sought

By both, if taste and pleasure and desire

 

Bind such a faithful love-knot, who can claim,

Either with envy, scorn, contempt or ire,

The power to untie so fast a knot?

 

Michelangelo – translated by Elizabeth Jennings

 

Michelangelo's sonnets