World, in hounding me, what do you gain? How can it harm you if I choose, astutetly, rather to stock my mind with things of beauty, than waste it's stock on every beauty's claim? Costliness and weatly bring me no pleasure; the only happiness I care to find derives from setting treasure in my mind and not from my mind that's set on winning treasure. I prize no comeliness. All fair things pay to time, the victor, their appointed fee and treasure cheats even the practiced eye. Mine is the better and truer way: to leave the vanities of life aside, now throw my life away on vanity.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Translated from Spanish by: Alan S. Trueblood
Very nice, the only thing, it is myopic. I liked it!
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