The Eleventh Sonnet to Beauty - Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero

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!

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Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero (1585 – 1618) The Netherlands

Translated by Cliff Crego

Source: Picture Poems (Cliff Crego)