Сонеты

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love’s face
May still seem love to me, though alter’d new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:

For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many’s looks the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns
                    and wrinkles strange,

But heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate’er thy thoughts
                    or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence
                          but sweetness tell.

How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!

98. «From you have I been absent in the spring…»

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d
                       and leap’d with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them
                             where they grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

99. «The forward violet thus did I chide…»

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal
                             thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee.

101. «O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends…»