he first Wisdom, free
Your country from the frauds that cumber it!
Swerve not: 'twere sin. How good, how great the praise
Of him who turns youth, strength, soul, energy,
Unto the dayspring of the eternal rays!

LIX.

_A SONNET ON CAUCASUS._

_Temo che per morir._

I fear that by my death the human race
Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.
So wide is this vast cage of misery
That flight and change lead to no happier place.
Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:
All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:
Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry
I may forget like many an old disgrace.
Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent
Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife
Or peace was with me in some earlier life.
Philip in a worse prison me hath pent
These three days past--but not without God's will.
Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.

LX.

_GOD MADE AND GOD RULES._

_La fabbrica del mondo._

The fabric of the world--earth, air, and skies--
Each particle thereof and tiniest part
Designed for special ends--proclaims the art
Of an almighty Maker good and wise.
Nathless the lawless brutes, our crimes and lies,
The joys of vicious men, the good man's smart,
All creatures swerving from their ends, impart
Doubts that the Ruler is nor good nor wise.
Can it then be that boundless Power, Love, Mind,
Lets others reign, the while He takes repose?
Hath He grown old, or hath He ceased to heed?
Nay, one God made and rules: He shall unwind
The tangled skein; the hidden law disclose,
Whereby so many sinned in thought and deed.

NOTES ON MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS.

I. Quoted by Donato Giannotti in his Dialogue _De' giorni che Dante
consumo nel cercare l'Inferno e 'l Purgatorio._ The date of its
composition is perhaps 1545.

II. Written probably for Donato Giannotti about the same date.

III. Belonging to the year 1506, when Michael Angelo quarrelled with
Julius and left Rome in anger. The tree referred to in the last line is
the oak of the Rovere family.

IV. Same date, and same circumstances. The autograph has these words at
the foot of the sonnet: _Vostro Miccelangniolo, in Turchia._ Rome
itself, the Sacred City, has become a land of infidels.

V. Ser Giovanni da Pistoja was Chancellor of the Florentine Academy.
The date is probably 1509. The _Sonetto a Coda_ is generally humorous