Shall I compare thee to a summer

SONNET 18

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

梁实秋 译

我可能把你和夏天相比拟？

你比夏天更可爱更温和：

狂风会把五月的花苞吹落地，

夏天也嫌太短促，匆匆而过：

有时太阳照得太热，

常常又遮暗他的金色的脸；

美的事物总不免要凋落，

偶然的，或是随自然变化而流转。

但是你的永恒之夏不会褪色；

你不会失去你的俊美的仪容；

死神不能夸说你在他的阴影里面走着，

如果你在这不朽的诗句里获得了永生；

只要人们能呼吸，眼睛能看东西，

此诗就会不朽，使你永久生存下去。