Tu regalo, tu agenda, está grabada
Con trazo indeleble en mi memoria,
Que sobrevivirá a este bien caduco
Largo Tiempo, quizás hasta lo eterno,
O al menos mientras corazón y mente
Subsistan por obra de Natura.
Mientras ambos no sean despojados
del recuerdo de ti, no ha de perderse.
Ese pobre registro abarca poco
Y yo puedo guardar tu amor sin tarjas;
Tuve pues la audacia de obsequiarla
Por fiarme de agenda más precisa:
Usar objetos para recordarte
Sería abrir las puertas al olvido.
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.