After trying many years, and then
near death, the able man may know
an image living in the alpine stone.
If at all, the high and new come slowly,
and, for us, they do not last so long.
Oh my beloved! nature's like that too,
who tried for beauty times untold
until she triumphed, and made you.
Yet by that token she is old
and almost at the end of her career.
So terror, which is always near
to beauty, feeds desire strange food.
My mind falls silent and no longer says
if joy or pain be more: the sight
of you calls forth the End of Days,
yet gives me great delight.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-trying-many-years/