Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short

And done, we straight repent us of the sport:

Let us not then rush blindly on unto it,

Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it:

For lust will languish, and that heat decay,

But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-day,

Let us together closely lie, and kiss,

There is no labour, nor no shame in this;

This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please; never

Can this decay, but is beginning ever.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN BY BEN JONSON

From “99 Poems in Translation,” selected by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert (Grove Press: 150 pp., $11 paper)