The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty
This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love:The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;Nor harbours it in any mortal part,Where erring thought or ill desire may move.When first Love sent our souls from God above,He fashioned me to see thee as thou art--Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpartIn thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof.As heat from fire, from loveliness divineThe mind that worships what recalls the sunFrom whence she sprang, can be divided never:And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine,Burning unto those orbs of light I run,There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever.
Words in this poem
- wherewith adv.
- With which; -- used relatively.
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- enshrine v. t.
- To inclose in a shrine or chest; hence, to preserve or cherish as something sacred; as, to enshrine something in memory.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty 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, The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/the-heavenly-birth-of-love-and-beauty.html, id L15170.
Form and metre
The Heavenly Birth of Love and Beauty 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 89%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% 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 loveA · heartB · partB · moveA · aboveA · artB · counterpartB · thereofA · divineC · sunD · neverE · enshrineC · runD · everE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love: | 10 | ·········· |
| The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart; | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Nor harbours it in any mortal part, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Where erring thought or ill desire may move. | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| When first Love sent our souls from God above, | 10 | ····/····· |
| He fashioned me to see thee as thou art-- | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpart | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof. | 10 | ·········· |
| As heat from fire, from loveliness divine | 10 | ···/·/˘˘˘/ |
| The mind that worships what recalls the sun | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| From whence she sprang, can be divided never: | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Burning unto those orbs of light I run, | 10 | /˘········ |
| There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
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.