When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before the bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
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;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
這樣,他的朱顏是古代的圖志,
那時美開了又謝像今天花一樣,
那時冒牌的艷色還未曾出世,
或未敢公然高據(jù)活人的額上,
那時死者的美發(fā),墳?zāi)沟呢敭a(chǎn),
還未被偷剪下來,去活第二回
在第二個頭上②;那時美的死金鬟
還未被用來使別人顯得華貴:
這圣潔的古代在他身上呈現(xiàn),
赤裸裸的真容,毫無一點鉛華,
不用別人的青翠做他的夏天,
不掠取舊脂粉妝飾他的鮮花;
就這樣造化把他當(dāng)圖志珍藏,
讓假藝術(shù)賞識古代美的真相。