Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

SONNET 18

by William Shakespeare

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。