William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet 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 should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.
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