Nathaniel’s nice reflection on Thomas Becket this morning put me in a medieval mood. While Dante also had plenty to say about those who are anathema , the following poem is decidedly more romantic:
Love and the gentle heart are one thing,
just as the poet says in his verse,
each from the other one as well divorced
as reason from the mind’s reasoning.Nature craves love, and then creates love king,
and makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay,
perhaps a shorter or a longer day,
breathing quietly, gently slumbering .Then beauty in a virtuous woman’s face
makes the eyes yearn, and strikes the heart,
so that the eyes’ desire’s reborn again,
and often, rooting there with longing, stays,Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts.
Woman’s moved likewise by a virtuous man.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
A Catholic Approach to Immigration
In the USCCB’s recent Special Pastoral Message, the bishops of the United States highlight the suffering inflicted…
The Classroom Heals the Wounds of Generations
“Hope,” wrote the German-American polymath Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, “is the deity of youth.” Wholly dependent on adults, children…
Still Life, Still Sacred
Renaissance painters would use life-sized wooden dolls called manichini to study how drapery folds on the human…
