Original subtitles

[57] Being your slave...

what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend...

nor services to do till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour...

whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you...

nor think the bitterness of absence sour...

when you have bid your servant once adieu.

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought where you may be...

or your affairs suppose.

But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought...

save where you are...

how happy you make those.

[90] Then hate me when thou wilt. If ever, now -

now while the world is bent my deeds to cross.

join with the spite of fortune, make me bow....

and do not drop in for an afterloss.

Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow...

come in the rearward of a conquered woe.

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow...

to linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last...

when other petty grief have done their spite....

but in the onset come.

So shall I taste at first the very worst of fortune's might...

and other strains of woe, which now seem woe...

compared with loss of thee...

- will not seem so.

[43] When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see.

For all the day they view things unrespected.

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee...

and, darkly bright...

are bright in dark directed.

Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright....

how would thy shadows form...

form happy show to the clear day...

with thy much clearer light....

when to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made....

by looking on thee in the living day...

when in dead night thy fair imperfect shade...

through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?

All days are nights to see till I see thee...

and nights bright days...

when dreams do show thee me.

[53] What is your substance...

whereof are you made...

that millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade...

and you, but one, can every shadow lend.

Describe Adonis....

and the counterfeit is poorly imitated after you.

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set...

and you in Grecian tires are painted new,

Speak of the spring and foison of the year...

the one doth shadow of your beauty show...

the other as your bounty doth appear...

and you in every blessed shape we know.

In all external grace you have some part...

but you like none...

none you, for constant heart.

[148] O me, what eyes hath love put in my head...

which have no correspondence with true sight.

Or, if they have...

where is my judgment fled...

that censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote...

what means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not...

then love doth well denote...

love's eye is not so true as all men 's. No.

How can it? O, how can love's eye be true...

that is so vexed with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view.

The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

O cunning love!

With tears thou keep'st me blind...

lest eyes well-seeing...

thy foul faults should find.

[126] O thou, my lovely boy...

who in thy hour dost hold Time's fickle glass...

his sickle power...

who hast by waning grown...

and therein show'st thy lover's withering...

as thy sweet self grow'st...

if Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack...

as thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back...

she keeps thee to this purpose...

that her skill may time disgrace...

and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure.

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure.

Her audit, though delayed, answered must be...

and her quietus is to render thee.

[29] When 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 possessed...

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.

[94] They that have power to hurt and will do none...

that do not do the thing they most do show...

who, moving others, are themselves as stone...

unmoved, cold...

and to temptation slow-

they rightly do inherit heaven's graces...

and husband nature's riches from expense.

They are the lords and owners of their faces...

others but stewards of their excellence,

The surnmer's flower is to the summer sweet...

though to itself it it only live and die...

but if that flower with base infection meet...

the basest weed outbraves his dignity.

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds.

Lilies that fester...

smell far worse than weeds.

[30] When 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 canceled 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 forebemoaned 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.

[55] Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these contents...

than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn...

and broils root out the work of masonry...

nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn the living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity shall you pace forth.

Your praise shall still find room...

even in the eyes of all posterity...

that wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise...

you live in this...

and dwell in lovers' eyes.

[27] Weary 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.

[61] Is it thy will thy image should keep open my heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken...

while shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee...

so far from home into my deeds to pry...

to find out shames and idle hours in me...

the scope and tenor of thy jealousy?

Oh, no!

Thy love, though much, is not so great.

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake.

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat...

to play the watchman ever for thy sake.

For thee watch I...

whilst thou dost wake elsewhere...

from me far off...

with others all too near.

[56] Sweet love, renew thy force.

Be it not said thy edge should blunter be than appetite...

which but today by feeding is allayed...

tomorrow sharpened in his former might.

So, love, be thou.

Although today thou fill thy hungry eyes...

even till they wink with fullness...

tomorrow see again...

and do not kill the spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.

Let this sad interim like the ocean be...

which parts the shore...

where two contracted new come daily to the banks...

that, when they see return of love...

more blest may be the view.

Else call it winter...

which being full of care...

makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more rare.

[104] 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 turned...

in process of the seasons have I seen...

three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned...

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.