Огромный гордый парус его слов -
высоко оценен тобой, бесценный,
Что даже онемел мой зрелый мозг,
став гробом мыслям до их порожденья.
Его ли дух, обученный писать
до смертной высоты, меня убил так,
Но нет, ни он и ни в ночи друзья
мой стих так удивить не помогли бы.
Он, тот любезный и знакомый дух,
который полнит ум его ночами, -
тот тишину и победил мою,
и больше страхов я не замечаю.
Как только ты его стихи признал -
Я сущность потерял и духом пал.
SONNET 86
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance fil'd up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.
NOTES
LXXXVI. The poet maintains that the silence which he had previously mentioned was not caused by dismay at the achievements of his rival, nor at such supernatural or other aid as his rival may have secured. It was because Mr. W. H. had given countenance to this rival's poetry that his own powers had fainted and failed.
1. The proud full sail of his great verse. Suiting well the grand fourteen-syllable lines of Chapman's Iliad, as pointed out by Professor Minto.
3. Inhearse. Entomb, so that Shakespeare could say nothing.
5, 6. By spirits taught to write, &c. Cf. the quotation given below, line 9.
7. His compeers by night. Cf. Chapman's Shadow of Night, quoted by Professor Minto, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 291:
"All you possessed with indepressed spirits,
Endued with nimble and aspiring wits,
Come consecrate with me to sacred Night
Your whole endeavours and detest the light."
9. Nor that affable familiar ghost, &c. Cf. Dedication to Shadow of Night, also quoted by Minto:
"Now what a supererogation in wit this is, to think Skill so mightily pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely show them her secrets, when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching, yea, not without having drops of their souls like a heavenly familiar."
13. Fil'd. is perhaps doubtful whether the "fild" of Q. should be represented by "til'd" or "fill'd." The latter would suit very well the "lacking matter" of line 14. 14. Then lack'd I matter. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. sc. 3, lines 103, 104, "Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument."