Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come

1Who will believe my verse in time to come,

2If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

3Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

4Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.

5If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

6And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

7The age to come would say 'This poet lies;

8Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

9So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,

10Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,

11And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage

12And stretched metre of an antique song:

13 But were some child of yours alive that time,

14 You should live twice, — in it, and in my rhyme.