THE ELEVENTH SONNET TO BEAUTY – Poetry, by Gerbrand Bredero

THE ELEVENTH SONNET TO BEAUTY

O ripe bosom white that steadily before mine eyes, so dearly drifts, like the clear reflection, at the source of the Rhine of the purest snow. Ah but your shimmering, o weak eyes doth impair! With chaste milk appear there laden, two silver covers round, on top of both a ruby, which like small apples with cherries crowned, whose red ripeness an unsettling pleasure bears. Ah, who would know it, what heavenly suckling, shall there lay, who with the golden tinkle of his Mother’s true jewels, delicately shall play, and sit upon her lap, suppress his babytalk, then enough be said, apple’s most beautiful adornment, is the most lovely child of all the many parts of the world!

(Gerbrand Bredero)

http://www.amazon.in/Dutch-Poetry-Translation-Kaleidoscope-Medieval/dp/0966001613