Who will believe my verse in time to come
Sonnet 17Who 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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Who's going to believe my poems in times to come, if I filled it with descriptions of what you're really like? Though in truth, they don't do you justice at all – it's like hiding your life in a tomb.
If I could translate the beauty of your eyes into words, and set down all your charms in new-made verses, people in the future would say: “this poet lies, no mortal has ever had such heavenly beauty.” Then my age-yellowed poems would be as scorned as doddery old me who whitter away a load of nonsense, and the just praise due to you will be terms wild poetic ravings, and improbable comparisons of an old-fashioned versifier.
On the other hand, if there were a child of your alive at the time they read it, [they'd belive], and you'd live twice, both in my poems and in the child.