Spring, and the sharpness of the golden dawn - Decimius Magnus Ausonius

Spring, and the sharpness of the golden dawn.

Before the sun was up a cooler breeze

Had blown, in promise of a day of heat,

And I was walking in my formal garden,

To freshen me, before the day grew old.

I saw the hoar frost stiff on the bent grasses,

Sitting in fat globes on the cabbage leaves,

And all my Paestum roses laughing at me,

Dew-drenched, and in the East the morning star,

And here and there a dewdrop glistening white,

That soon must perish in the early sun.

Think you, did Dawn steal colour from the roses,

Or was it new born day that stained the rose?

To each one dew, one crimson, and one morning,

To stay and rose, their lady Venus one.

Mayhap one fragrance, but the sweet of Dawn

Drifts through the sky, and closer breathes the rose.

A moment dies: this bud that was new born

Has burgeoned even fold on even fold;

This still is green, with her close cap of leaves,

This shows a red stain on her tender sheath,

This the first crimson of the loosened bud;

And now she thinks to unwind her coverings,

And lo! the glory of the radiant chalice,

Scatt’ring the close seeds of her golden heart.

One moment, all on fire and crimson glowing,

All pallid now and bare and desolate.

I marvelled at the flying rape of time;

But now a rose was born: that rose is old.

Even as I speak the crimson petals float

Down drifting, and the crimsoned earth is bright

So many lovely things, so rare, so young,

A day begat them, and a day will end.

O Earth, to give a flower so brief a grace!

As long as a day is long, so long the life of a rose.

The golden sun at morning sees her born,

And late at eve returning finds her old.

Yet wise is she, that hath so soon to die,

And lives her life in some succeeding rose.

O maid, while youth is with the rose and thee,

Pluck thou the rose: life is as swift for thee.

Decimius Magnus Ausonius (310 - 395) France

Translated by by Helen Waddell

Source: Mediaeval Latin lyrics by Helen Waddell, Henry Holt and Company, 1938