Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/151

 one strikes the other, if a single mind, if a single will governs two hearts, if a soul in two bodies has become eternal, bearing both to heaven on the same wings, if Cupid with a single golden shaft pierces and burns the heart of both at once, if one loves the other and neither loves himself, if both centre their pleasure and their joy in attaining the same end, if a thousand thousand loves are not a hundredth part of the love and faith which binds them, could a movement of vexation ever shatter and untie such a bond?"

This forgetfulness of self, this ardent gift of his whole being, which melted in that of the beloved one, was not always characterised by this serenity. Sadness once more got the upper hand, and the soul, possessed by love, struggled and moaned.

"I weep, I burn, I am consumed, and my heart nourishes itself on its troubles…."

"You who have taken from me the joy of living," he says elsewhere to Cavalieri.

To these over-passionate poems, Cavalieri, "the gentle and beloved lord," opposed his calm and affectionate coldness. Secretly he was shocked by the exaggeration of this friendship. Michael Angelo made excuses: