Volume 16 / Part 4 — Sonnet.
Reading edition
From the Italian of Giovanni Battista Zappi, upon the Moses of Michael Angelo in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, at Rome.
Whose form there, sculptured in such mass of stone,
Sits like a giant, carrying art so far
Beyond all works most beautiful and known?
On those quick lips life's very accents are!
That man is Moses: on the awful front
The double ray,271 the glory of his beard,
Reveal as much: 'tis Moses from the Mount
When much of Deity in his face appeared!
So looked he once when he the vasty fount
Of sounding waters with his one word stayed.
Such was his aspect when the sea obeyed
And swallowed Egypt. O ye tribes that bent
Before the calf! had you an image made
Like this to worship, less were to repent.
[pg 808]