Nor, Lady, think the Poet’s eye
Can only outward charms espy,
  Thy form alone adoring—­
Ah, Lady, no:  though fair they be. 
Yet he a fairer sight may see,
  Thy lovely soul exploring: 

And while from part to part it flies
The gentle Spirit he descries,
  Through every line pursuing;
And feels upon his nature shower
That pure, that humanizing power,
  Which raises by subduing.

Sonnet

On a Falling Group in the Last Judgement of MICHAEL ANGELO, in the Cappella Sistina.

How vast, how dread, overwhelming is the thought
Of Space interminable! to the soul
A circling weight that crushes into nought
Her mighty faculties! a wond’rous whole,
Without or parts, beginning, or an end! 
How fearful then on desp’rate wings to send
The fancy e’en amid the waste profound! 
Yet, born as if all daring to astound,
Thy giant hand, oh Angelo, hath hurl’d
E’en human forms, with all their mortal weight,
Down the dread void—­fall endless as their fate! 
Already now they seem from world to world
For ages thrown; yet doom’d, another past,
Another still to reach, nor e’er to reach the last!

Sonnet

On the Group of the Three Angels before the Tent of Abraham, by RAFFAELLE, in the Vatican.

Oh, now I feel as though another sense
From Heaven descending had informed my soul;
I feel the pleasurable, full control
Of Grace, harmonious, boundless, and intense. 
In thee, celestial Group, embodied lives
The subtle mystery; that speaking gives
Itself resolv’d:  the essences combin’d
Of Motion ceaseless, Unity complete. 
Borne like a leaf by some soft eddying wind,
Mine eyes, impelled as by enchantment sweet,
From part to part with circling motion rove,
Yet seem unconscious of the power to move;
From line to line through endless changes run,
O’er countless shapes, yet seem to gaze on One.

Sonnet

On seeing the Picture of AEolus by PELIGRINO TIBALDI, in the Institute at Bologna.

Full well, Tibaldi, did thy kindred mind
The mighty spell of Bonarroti own. 
Like one who, reading magick words, receives
The gift of intercourse with worlds uknnown,
’Twas thine, decyph’ring Nature’s mystick leaves,
To hold strange converse with the viewless wind;
To see the Spirits, in embodied forms,
Of gales and whirlwinds, hurricanes and storms. 
For, lo! obedient to thy bidding, teems
Fierce into shape their stern relentless Lord: 
His form of motion ever-restless seems;
Or, if to rest inclin’d his turbid soul,
On Hecla’s top to stretch, and give the word
To subject Winds that sweep the desert pole.

Sonnet