Сонеты

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?

O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.

24. «Mine eye hath play’d the painter…»

Mine eye hath play’d the painter
                              and hath stell’d
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein ‘tis held,
And perspective it is the painter’s art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies;
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes
                                        have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape,
                                   and thine for me
Are windows to my breast,
                         where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee:

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
They draw but what they see,
                                 know not the heart.

29. «When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes…»

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him
                    with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns
                    at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remember’d such
                              wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state
                                  with kings.

30. «When to the sessions of sweet silent thought…»