So toilsome-slow to him whose hairs are white;
Those tears and flames that in one breast unite;
If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!
Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive
Only on bitter honey-dews of tears,
Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.
My soul that toward the other shore doth strive,
Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears;
And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.
After this it only remains to quote the celebrated sonnet used by Varchi for his dissertation, the best known of all Michael Angelo's poems.[[426]] The thought is this: just as a sculptor hews from a block of marble the form that lies concealed within, so the lover has to extract from his lady's heart the life or death of his soul,