Columns, arches, vaults: how he knew
The ways you promise what you lack;
And that your bodies, like your souls,
Always slip from our grasping hands.
Space is such a lure . . . Swift to disappoint,
As they raise and topple clouds, the sky's
Architects still offer more than ours,
Who only build a scaffolding of dreams.
He dreamed, all the same; but on that day,
He gave a better use to beauty's shapes:
He understood that form means to die.
And this, his final work, is a coin
With both sides bare. He made in stone,
Of this great room, the arrow and the bow.
TRANSLATED BY HOYT ROGERS
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
placed in southern Tuscany, province of Siena, Montepulciano is a lovely medieval town surrounded by precious vineyards... The 16th century* Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Biagio is placed outside the city (* it was built on the remains of a pre-existing Palaeochristian Pieve) .