Celestial and Earthly Love
Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:If it be love of loveliness divine,It leaves the heart all soft and infantineFor rays of God's own grace to enter in.Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her winHer flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline;'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrineOf Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.The love of that whereof I speak, ascends:Woman is different far; the love of herBut ill befits a heart all manly wise.The one love soars, the other downward tends;The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,And still his arrow at base quarry flies.
Words in this poem
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- infantine a.
- Infantile; childish. [Cf. F. enfantin.]
- whereof adv.
- Of which; of whom; formerly, also, with which; -- used relatively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Celestial and Earthly Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Celestial and Earthly Love, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/celestial-and-earthly-love.html, id L15195.
Form and metre
Celestial and Earthly Love is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAABBACDECDE sinA · divineB · infantineB · inA · winA · declineB · shrineB · withinA · ascendsC · herD · wiseE · tendsC · stirD · fliesE
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love is not always harsh and deadly sin: | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| If it be love of loveliness divine, | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| It leaves the heart all soft and infantine | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| For rays of God's own grace to enter in. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win | 10 | ·········· |
| Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline; | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| 'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine | 10 | ·········· |
| Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within. | 10 | ·········· |
| The love of that whereof I speak, ascends: | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Woman is different far; the love of her | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| But ill befits a heart all manly wise. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| The one love soars, the other downward tends; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The soul lights this, while that the senses stir, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And still his arrow at base quarry flies. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.