Sonnet 17
Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled 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 touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed 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.
June 12th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Glad to see you’re up to sonnet 17. This one is my favorite — I recited it at my wedding. I agree that it’s really quite simple to understand, the poet simply saying “Look, no matter how good *I* am, the simple fact is that you are so unbelievably amazing that no matter what I write, everybody’s going to think I exaggerated.” The funny thing about this one is that the only reference to a child at all is right at the end, and quite frankly that ’s the weakest part. Take that away and the whole sonnet is just a tribute to this person’s beauty. It’s like the whole child thing is an after thought.
Duane