But until we have arrived at seizing them we shall fail to understand the psychology of natures like Michelangelo.

No language of admiration is too strong, no self-humiliation too complete, for a soul which has recognised deity made manifest in one of its main attributes, beauty.

In the sight of a philosopher, a poet, and an artist, what are kings, popes, people of importance, compared with a really perfect piece of God's handiwork?
_From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord, That which no mortal tongue can rightly say; The soul imprisoned in her house of clay, Holpen by thee, to God hath often soared.
And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde Attribute what their grosser wills obey, Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay, This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.
Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth, Resemble for the soul that rightly sees That source of bliss divine which gave us birth: Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances Of heaven elsewhere.

Thus, loving loyally, I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee._ We know that, in some way or other, perhaps during those early years at Florence among the members of the Platonic Academy, Michelangelo absorbed the doctrines of the _Phoedrus_ and _Symposium_.

His poems abound in references to the contrast between Uranian and Pandemic, celestial and vulgar, Eros.