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ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students

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

William Shakespeare·1564–1616
Lines:14Movement:English Renaissance
Who 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 tombWhich 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 rageAnd 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.