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 should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.
William Shakespeare