They are divided by a period of more than thirty years.

The first seems to date from an early epoch of his life:-- _What joy hath yon glad wreath of flowers that is Around her golden hair so deftly twined, Each blossom pressing forward from behind, As though to be the first her brows to kiss! The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss, That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind: And that fair woven net of gold refined Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness! Yet still more blissful seems to me the band, Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring, And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace: Yea, and the belt, to such as understand, Bound round her waist, saith: Here I'd ever cling! What would my arms do in that girdle's place ?_ The second can be ascribed with probability to the year 1534 or 1535.
It is written upon the back of a rather singular letter addressed to him by a certain Pierantonio, when both men were in Rome together:-- _Kind to the world, but to itself unkind, A worm is born, that, dying noiselessly, Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be In its true worth alone by death divined.
Would I might die for my dear lord to find Raiment in my outworn mortality; That, changing like the snake, I might be free To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined! Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays, Woven and wrought into a vestment fair, Around yon breast so beauteous in such bliss! All through the day thou'd have me! Would I were The shoes that bear that burden! when the ways Were wet with rain, thy feet I then should kiss!_ I have already alluded to the fact that we can trace two widely different styles of writing in Michelangelo's poetry.

Some of his sonnets, like the two just quoted, and those we can refer with certainty to the Cavalieri series, together with occasional compositions upon the deaths of Cecchino and Urbino, seem to come straight from the heart, and their manuscripts offer few variants to the editor.

Others, of a different quality, where he is dealing with Platonic subtleties or Petrarchan conceits, have been twisted into so many forms, and tortured by such frequent re-handlings, that it is difficult now to settle a final text.

The Codex Vaticanus is peculiarly rich in examples of these compositions.