Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

Young spring, sung spring now singing,

in spring the world was born;

in spring love is all agreement:

the songbirds alight and couple,

the woods let down their hair

and mate with the downpour.

Tomorrow the copulatrix

in the shadows between the trees

weaves greening whips

of myrtle into leafy arbors;

tomorrow the sublime assignation

proclaims laws from a throne.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

A globule of blood from on high

hit bright foam on a cerulean sea.

Tomorrow marks the day it fell

among the finny two-footed steeds,

and out of the flux of the waves

surged the sea-born goddess newly formed.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

She paints the shining year

with flower-gems herself,

urges the nipple buds arising

under the warm wind’s breath,

splashes the dripping moistness

of the lucid dew,

which the night air relinquishes

with such reluctance as it goes.

Tears of radiant dew glint

and quake in languorous heaviness;

each tiny orb maintains

its shape as it descends.

Look! An embarrassment of flowers:

their petals reach out and blush;

the drops serene stars distill

on the marriageable buds

of the night when the clouds are gone

and the mists arise at dawn

cause the nubile roses to unfold

themselves from their wet robes.

She herself ordered the maiden

roses to wed in the wet dew,

to be plucked as they were made

of beauty’s blood and love’s tongue kisses,

of bright, hard gems and flames,

and of radiant solar flares.

Tomorrow the young bride, who lurked

concealed in her burning dress,

will not be ashamed faithfully

to open her hidden crimson.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

The goddess herself has sent

the girls to the myrtle grove.

With them troops the boy,

but since no one can truly believe

that love’s relaxed when he’s

toting his arrows, she says:

“Go now, fresh girls:  love is slacking;

he’s even laid down his arms.

He’s been ordered to go out naked,

to go without weapons,

so that he won’t do harm

with bow, arrow, or flame.

Still, take heed, dear girls,

since the boy himself

is gorgeous, and when naked,

love is fully armed.”

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

“The goddess sends you blushing girls

as virginal as yourself.

We ask one thing only:  give way,

severe abstention, so that

the feral creatures remain

unslaughtered  in the woods,

and the woodland shades

may cover untrammeled flowers.

She herself beseeches you, if only

she could bend your virginity,

to come and see for yourself.

For three nights of festival,

you’d have seen the multitudes gathered

and a company of dancers swaying

among the hidden myrtle arbors

flower crowned. Neither fertile harvest grain

nor the ecstatic quaff of wine

are absent, nor the poet’s god.

The whole night is bewildered

and insomniac with song:

let delirious love be queen of the woodlands,

and let severity withdraw.”

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

The goddess commands her court

be set among the blossoms

of the southern slope. She herself

will mete out judgment

as the graces take their seats beside her.

O clothe yourself in all flowers,

all you downslope, pour out

a whole year’s worth at least,

and cover the plains below! The mother

of the wily, winged boy commands

that all sit beside her, and that all girls

put no trust in naked love,

whether they come from country or hill,

whether they live in forest, grove, or spring.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

Tomorrow will mark the day

when ethereal sky husbanded earth,

so that the father might create

all the year from clouds of spring;

he showered down into

the great body of his wife

so their offspring could be nourished.

She herself in occulted might

governs flesh and spirit, enkindles them

with her potency, the procreatrix.

And throughout the sky and the earth

and the deep sea she poured

a tide of herself to bridge

the way for the father’s seed

so that the universe might know

the nascent ways of creation.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

She herself engrafted Troy

onto the Italian stock;

she gave the Laurentian girl

to her pious son to be his bride,

and after gives war a virgin,

from out of the very fire of the temple.

She herself made the Romans wed

the conquered Sabine women,

from which she brought about

the union of the tribes

and all the future glory

begotten of Caesar, father and son.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

Rural nature comes alive with her

voluptuousness; the country feels

her touch. Love himself, her child, is said

to be country-born. She herself

raised him up to her breast

when the crops were most susceptible

to failure, nursed him with the tender

kisses of delicate flowers.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.

Look how the bulls at rest display

their flanks under the shrubs,

all secure in the wedlock

by which they are bound.

Behold in the shade the bleating flocks

come together in their union.

And the goddess commands song,

not muteness, from the songbirds,

and the hoarse-voiced swans crash down,

barbarous, breaking the smooth pond,

and the nightingale awakes

under the popular shade

to make tuneful the thought of love,

not her sister’s abuse endured

under a brutal husband. She sings,

and we are silent. When will my spring come?

When can I merge with the swallow,

so that I’m not voiceless?

I lost my muse keeping quiet,

and the god of poets abandons me:

as did she who by being silent

vanished in her lack of voice.

Tomorrow let them love who never have,

and let those who have loved love tomorrow.