What's in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must, each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
In expressing his love to his friend the poet had already used all the ideas which thought could devise, and all the expressions which language could supply. But, notwithstanding the constant repetition, the poet must not cease from his strains. Love is eternal, knowing no change in the object beloved.