From such spontaneous meditation Lorenzo could even pass to verses officially religious; but in them too, beneath the threadbare metaphors of the pious muse and her mystical paradoxes, we may still feel the austerity and firmness of reason. The following stanzas, for instance, taken from his "Laudi Spirituali," assume a sublime meaning if we remember that the essence to which they are addressed, before being a celestial Monarch into whose visible presence any accident might usher us, was a general idea of what is good and an intransitive rational energy, indistinguishable from the truth of things. "O let this wretched life within me die That I may live in thee, my life indeed; In thee alone, where dwells eternity, While hungry multitudes death's hunger feed. I list within, and hark! Death's stealthy tread! I look to thee, and nothing then is dead. "Then eyes may see a light invisible And ears may hear a voice without a sound,-- A voice and light not harsh, but tempered well, Which the mind wakens when the sense is drowned, Till, wrapped within herself, the soul have flown To that last good which is her inmost own. "When, sweet and beauteous Master, on that day, Reviewing all my loves with aching heart, I take from each its bitter self away, The remnant shall be thou, their better part. This perfect sweetness be his single store Who seeks the good; this faileth nevermore. "A thirst unquenchable is not beguiled By draught on draught of any running river Whose fiery waters feed our pangs for ever, But by a living fountain undefiled. O sacred well, I seek thee and were fain To drink; so should I never thirst again."