Lope de Vega (1562–1635)

Translated by James Y. Gibson

TO write a sonnet doth Juana press me,

I’ve never found me in such stress or pain;

A sonnet numbers fourteen lines, ’tis plain,

And three are gone, ere I can say, God bless me!

I thought that spinning rhymes might sore oppress me,

Yet here I’m midway in the last quatrain;

And if the foremost tercet I can gain,

The quatrains need not any more distress me.

To the first tercet I have got at last,

And travel through it with such right good will,

That with this line I’ve finished it, I ween;

I’m in the second now, and see how fast

The thirteenth line runs tripping from my quill;

Hurrah, ’tis done! Count if there be fourteen!