|
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
|
|
Such lust you wake with sunlight as your suit!
Unyielding rays gave you their glow, it seems.
My raw desire, once this bashful fruit,
Matured and ripened under fervent beams.
Endure, Oh cheery fire-sprite of June!
Relieve this heart bewitched with moody air;
Breathe in your kiss the awesome heat of dunes
To soothe my cheeks, then tease them with your hair.
Don't hide away or fear this fevered dare;
Can heaven reach you if you merely yearn?
None can repress the force of passion's flare;
If we were doomed to burn, then let us burn!
Come, flame, consume these bodies firmly pressed -
Beneath the ash, our seed should prosper best.
|
As fierce September winds of early morn
Unleash their murmurs to the misty air,
Their northbound puffs, with impudence and scorn,
Unravelling your finely-braided hair,
My peace becomes one troubled reverie.
Now that the summer cheer, so brief, has faded,
I see your comely features, once woe-free,
Bear haunted outlines, sane while strained and jaded.
But when I pause those thoughts of yesterday,
It strikes me that these worries have no need:
Your eyes survey me in your feisty way
And every fear which bothered me recedes.
Though each of us treads through this season sole,
The spark of life within you keeps us whole.
|
|
Where are those summer days or autumn nights,
I often muse when feebly we embrace
Near hearth in vain, then sense some noise with fright -
These storms of ice which feud outside our place.
Each week we suffer January's flurry;
Recluse and hidden, buried under frost.
You're pained to see my rhymes are bleak and blurry;
It seems my flair for poetry is lost...
And yet, I care not for the poet's duty:
What purpose has this insincere device
If you're beside me? Odes shan't match your beauty.
Your heartbeat near my own dissolved the ice.
Though Weather, heinous foe, shrieks high above,
Deep underneath, these roots will feed our love.
|
So many joyous birds soar through the sky!
Purer than pure, their cheerful chirps and tunes
Rush by the handsome house, then flutter high
In this real cherished, mid-March afternoon.
New flowers everywhere, like wide-eyed fairies,
Grace Nature's blouse and douse it with perfume...
I meet this blossom's hues, this petal airy:
The cherry tree, once faint and weak, now blooms.
You see, my fair-eyed bride, the year flew by;
Four seasons came and waned before our eyes,
And every time affection seemed to die
You've shown me that a true one never dies.
The future's here, my wife, it has begun:
At last, our love produced this precious son.
|
