Sonnet XXIII
So long as of red rose and lily white
the proper colors of your face now show,
and your impassioned, fervent, honest glance
inflames the heart and holds it close in tow;
and so long as your hair, which in a vein
of gold was mined, endowed with rapid flight,
around your lovely white, and haughty throat
the wind can still move, scatter, and uncomb;
go, pluck now from the spring of your delight
the sweetest fruit, before the angry years
can wrap the lovely peak in snowy scenes.
The icy wind will cause the rose to wilt,
and all things will be changed by fickle time,
so as to never change its own routine.
b|Translated by Alix Ingber
While rose's charming blush and lily's white
Are still the colours radiant on your face,
And while your fiery gaze with candid grace
Still checks the burning flame it set alight,
And while your flaxen hair, still gleaming bright,
Mined from some vein of gold, falls out of place
(Your neck - that marble pillar! - to embrace)
By wayward breezes spread and set in flight,
The ripening harvest of your happy spring
Now gather in, before destructive Time
Lays waste with snow the summit of your head.
Cold winds will blast the rose now in its prime,
And fickle Age will alter everything,
So not to change his own old ways instead.
Translated by Alan Crooke
While yet the lily and the rose
display their colours in your cheek,
your fiery glance, though often meek,
conquers and burns where'er it goes;
while yet your hair, from finest seams
the choicest gold, that wanton air
may scatter and toss about your fair
white throat, in quick disorder streams;
enjoy your gay spring's sweetest fruit
before stern Time's relentless snows
have blanched the beauty of your head.
The icy wind will fade the rose,
Immutably, Time must transmute
and how may swift Age be gainsaid?
Translated by Nick Mascall
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