Poem by Buonarroti

[cactusman]

This poem seems somehow appropriate, especially at the end. It's by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), translated from the Italian:

Is my soul feeling the longed for light
Of God who created it? Is it the gleam
Of a different beauty from the valley of misery,
reflecting in my heart and evoking memory?

Is it a sound, a dreamy vision,
That suddenly fills my eye and heart
In incomprehensibly burning pain,
That brings me to tears? I do not know.

What I long for, the sense of what directs me,
Is not within me: Tell me, how do I acquire it?

To me it reveals only another's grace and love;
I have been their captive since I first saw you.

I am driven by a yes and a no, a sweet and a bitter --
That, mistress, is the doing of your eyes.