Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
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.
这样,他的朱颜是古代的图志,
那时美开了又谢像今天花一样,
那时冒牌的艳色还未曾出世,
或未敢公然高据活人的额上,
那时死者的美发,坟墓的财产,
还未被偷剪下来,去活第二回
在第二个头上②;那时美的死金鬟
还未被用来使别人显得华贵:
这圣洁的古代在他身上呈现,
赤裸裸的真容,毫无一点铅华,
不用别人的青翠做他的夏天,
不掠取旧脂粉妆饰他的鲜花;
就这样造化把他当图志珍藏,
让假艺术赏识古代美的真相。