Thus is his cheek the map of days...
Language: English
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these 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.
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Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
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This text was added to the website: 2010-08-12
Line count: 14
Word count: 108
Così la sua guancia è la mappa dei...
Language: Italian (Italiano)  after the English
Così la sua guancia è la mappa dei giorni passati,
Quando la bellezza viveva e moriva come i fiori ora,
prima che questi segni bastardi di bellezza fossero creati,
e sopra un volto vivo potessero trovare dimora.
Prima che ogni treccia dorata dei defunti,
diritto dei sepolcri, venisse recisa,
per vivere una seconda vita su una seconda testa;
dal vello morto della bellezza, resa più vistosa:
In lui si riconoscono quelle sacre ore passate,
di ornamenti prive, ma autentiche e vere,
Che l’altrui verde non usavano per la propria estate,
Non saccheggiando il vecchio per bellezza rinnovare;
E lui, come una mappa, la Natura tiene in serbo
per mostrare alla falsa Arte ciò che la bellezza era un tempo.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2025 by Ferdinando Albeggiani, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
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This text was added to the website: 2025-07-17
Line count: 14
Word count: 119