Shakespeare's Sonnets: Who will believe my verse in time to come

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Who will believe my verse in time to come

Sonnet 17

Original Text
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS (London: G. Eld for T. T. and sold by William Aspley, 1609): b4r-b4v.
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. Back to Line
4] parts] qualities. Back to Line
6] Extrametrical line: Shakespeare anticipates here and in line 8 the "stretchèd metre of an antique song". numbers] verses. Back to Line
8] heav'nly] heauenly Q. Extrametrical line. ne'er] near Q. Back to Line
12] metre] miter Q. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1609
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2008
Rhyme
ababcdcdefefgg
Form
sonnet