Сонеты

I never saw that you did painting need
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet’s debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself being extant well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth
                                   in you doth grow.

This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life and bring a tomb.

There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

87. «Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing…»

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then
                              not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better
                                  judgment making.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

91. «Some glory in their birth, some in their skill…»

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth,
                    some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments,
                    though new-fangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds,
                    some in their horse;

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than
                    garments’ cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast:

Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away and me most wretched make.

93. «So shall I live, supposing thou art true…»