A village nestled in a ring of hills
And waters came hurrying in a stream,—
It was so until academic mills
Got busy grinding scripts, ream after ream.

Oh these stupid credulous folk! don’t know
Methods of editing texts, how to read
Phrases that are old, blurry, that but show
The author his own promptings failed to heed.

We’re the authentic lot from Yale-Harvard
And the archival sciences, they maintain,
Cannot be disputed be they for the bard
Or for chaps who in the world see no gain.

By now disappeared the small place, the brook,
And the demons of thought its possession took.

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Sculpture is the first of the arts because God was a Sculptor, said Michelangelo. But he was also the greatest lyric poet of the Renaissance who wrote poetry in his old age. For him love became religion and, one in love’s completeness, yearned for Christ’s miraculous power to feel complete. Here are a few poetic compositions of his picked up at random from The Complete Poems of Michelangelo.

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