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As horas que suavemente emolduraram
O olhar amoroso onde repousam os olhos
Serão eles o seu próprio tirano,
E com a injustiça que justamente se excede;
Pois o Tempo incansável arrasta o verão
Ao terrível inverno, e ali o detém,
Congelando a seiva, banindo as folhas verdes,
Ocultando a beleza, desolada, sob a neve.
Então, os fluidos do estio não restaram
Retidos nas paredes de vidro,
O belo rosto de sua beleza roubada,
Sem deixar resquícios nem lembranças do que fora;
Mas as flores destilaram, sobreviveram ao inverno,
Ressurgindo, renovadas, com o frescor de sua seiva.

 

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check’d with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnow’d and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer’s distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill’d though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Notes

gaze (2): object gazed at.

unfair (4): deprive of beauty (the only place it is used by Shakespeare).

fairly (4): beautifully and legitimately.

confounds (6): destroys.

checked (7): halted.

distillation (9): perfume distilled from flowers.

bereft (11): lost.

Leese (14): lose (again, the only place it is used by Shakespeare).