Sonnet 68

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flower do now,
Before these bastard sighs of fair were borne
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
如是他的臉歲月留痕殘破,
那時美貌生息如花自開自落,
沒有可惡討厭的粉飾,
膽敢在活人的額上棲息。
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchers, were shorn away
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay,
之前死人的金髮綿延,
屬於墳墓, 無人刈剪,
如今在別人的頭顱上懸,
美髮讓活人歡喜漣漣。
In him those holy antique hours are seen
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another’s green
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
他們的古老歲月神聖,
毫無妝扮, 自然純正,
不用旁人的夏天鋪陳綠意,
掠奪他人舊袍作自己新衣。
And him as for a map doth nature store,
To show false art what beauty was of yore.
大自然收藏他真實的臉相,
向假美開示昔日美的真相。

2006/3/31