William Shakespeare (ca. 1564-1616)
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Who will believe my verse in time to come
Sonnet 17
1Who will believe my verse in time to come
2If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
3Though yet heav'n knows it is but as a tomb
4Which hides your life and shews 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,
8"Such heav'nly touches ne'er touch't earthly faces."
9So should my papers (yellowed 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 stretchèd 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.
Notes
3] heav'n] heauen Q.
4] parts] qualities.
6] Extrametrical line: Shakespeare anticipates here and in line 8 the "stretchèd metre of an antique song". numbers] verses.
8] heav'nly] heauenly Q. Extrametrical line. ne'er] near Q.
12] metre] miter Q.
Online text copyright © 2012, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b4r-b4v.
First publication date:
1609
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2008
Recent editing: 1:2008/8/21
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg
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