Сонеты

O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say
‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix’d?’

Because he needs no praise,
                    wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so; for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence
                    as he shows now.

104. «To me, fair friend, you never can be old…»

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still.
                    Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook
                    three summers’ pride,

Three beauteous springs
                    to yellow autumn turn’d
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks
                    still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

106. «When in the chronicle of wasted time…»

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,
Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues
                              to praise.

115. «Those lines that I before have writ do lie…»