SONNET
~William Shakespeare~
XVII.
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your
parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say `This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly
faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than
tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that
time,
You shold live twice; in it and in my
rhyme.
