Oh Let Me See

(Michelangelo - found here)

Oh let me see You everywhere I go!

  If mortal beauty sets the soul afire,

  Your dazzle will show how dim it is; desire

  for You burns high, as once in heaven’s own air.

It’s You alone, my dearest Lord, my prayer

  appeals to against passion’s futile anguish;

  only You can give me vision to distinguish

  what I should think, wish, do, though slack and slow.

You tethered me to time, no road-to-bliss way,

  sentenced, though stooped and faint, to endless ranging,

  shackled in heavy flesh, remissions few.

What can I do to escape from living this way?

  Your power divine is my one chance of changing.

  I’ve nothing to fall back on, Lord, but You.

~Michelangelo (translated from the Italian by John Frederick Nims)