WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE 1564-1616
HALL I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date : Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
O is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, And every fair with his fair doth rehearse; Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me, true in love, but truly write, And then believe me, my Love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air? Let them say more that like of hearsay well, I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
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 gav'st me thine, not to give back again.
LET those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlooked for joy in that I honour most. Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread But as the marigold at the sun's eye, And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die. The painful warrior famousèd for fight, After a thousand victories, once foiled, Is from the book of honour razèd quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled: Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed.
EARY with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black Night beauteous and her old face new. Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind For thee and for myself no quiet find.
HEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf 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 possest, 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 remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
HEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste : Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight : Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
HY bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear-religious love stolen from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But things removed, that hidden in thee lie! Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give; That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I loved I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
FRANCESCO'S SONNET,
CALLED HIS PARTING BLOW.
REASON, that long in prison of my will
Hast wept thy mistress' wants and loss of time, Thy wonted siege of honour safely climb;
To thee I yield as guilty of mine ill.
Lo, fettered in their tears, mine eyes are prest
To pay due homage to their native guide :
My wretched heart, wounded with bad betide, To crave his peace from reason is addrest.
My thoughts ashamed, since by themselves consumed, Have done their duty to repentant wit: Ashamed of all, sweet guide, I sorry sit, To see in youth how I too far presumed. Thus he whom love and error did betray Subscribes to thee and takes the better way. Sero sed serio.
WHAT meant the poets in invective verse
To sing Medea's shame, and Scylla's pride, Calypso's charms by which so many died? Only for this their vices they rehearse : That curious wits which in the world converse, May shun the dangers and enticing shows Of such false sirens, those home-breeding foes," That from their eyes their venom do disperse. So soon kills not the basilisk with sight; The viper's tooth is not so venomous; The adder's tongue not half so dangerous, As they that bear the shadow of delight, Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair, Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair.
« ZurückWeiter » |