We must not forget that at this time Michael Angelo was an old man, that he carried about with him a freshness and vigor of feeling that most people lose with their youth. A reservoir of emotion broke loose within him at a time when it caused his hale old frame suffering to undergo it, and reillumined his undimmed intellect to cope with it. A mystery play was enacted in him,--each sonnet is a scene. There is the whole of a man in each of many of these sonnets. They do not seem so much like poems as like microcosms. They are elementally complete. The soul of man could be evolved again from them if the formula were lost. XL I know not if it be the longed for light Of its creator which the soul perceives, Or if in people's memory there lives A touch of early grace that keeps them bright Or else ambition,--or some dream whose might Brings to the eyes the hope the heart conceives And leaves a burning feeling when it leaves-- That tears are welling in me as I write. The things I feel, the things I follow and the things I seek--are not in me,--I hardly know the place To find them. It is others make them mine. It happens when I see thee--and it brings Sweet pain--a yes,--a no,--sorrow and grace Surely it must have been those eyes of thine. There are others which give a most touching picture of extreme piety in extreme old age. And there are still others which are both love poems and religious poems at the same time. LV Thou knowest that I know that thou dost know How, to enjoy thee, I did come more near. Thou knowest, I know thou knowest--I am here. Would we had given our greetings long ago. If true the hope thou hast to me revealed, If true the plighting of a sacred troth, Let the wall fall that stands between us both, For griefs are doubled when they are concealed. If, loved one,--if I only loved in thee What thou thyself dost love,--'tis to this end The spirit with his belovéd is allied. The things thy face inspires and teaches me Mortality doth little comprehend. Before we understand we must have died. LI Give me the time when loose the reins I flung Upon the neck of galloping desire. Give me the angel face that now among The angels,--tempers Heaven with its fire. Give the quick step that now is grown so old, The ready tears--the blaze at thy behest, If thou dost seek indeed, O Love! to hold Again thy reign of terror in my breast. If it be true that thou dost only live Upon the sweet and bitter pains of man Surely a weak old man small food can give Whose years strike deeper than thine arrows can. Upon life's farthest limit I have stood-- What folly to make fire of burnt wood.