Сонеты

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you
                              dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards
                                   burn clearer.

But reckoning Тime, whose million’d accidents
Creep in ‘twixt vows
                    and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course
                               of altering things;

Alas, why, fearing of Тime’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which
                    still doth grow?

116. «Let me not to the marriage of true minds…»

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although
                    his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips
                              and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours
                              and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

117. «Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all…»

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds
And given to time your own
                    dear-purchased right
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest
                    from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down
And on just proof surmise accumulate;
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken’d hate;

Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.

120. «That you were once unkind befriends me now…»

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass
                    or hammer’d steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.

O, that our night of woe might
                    have remember’d
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender’d
The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits!

But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours
                          must ransom me.