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.
You with your
aureate tongue,
so worn out
and overwrought,
like wine that
has been
aged beyond
its time;
euphonious are
your words,
speaking of the
heavenly beauty
found in your
subject,
and yet beauty
is all you speak of,
and the people
would point out
your lies;
no such person
existed except within
the chimerical whims
of your mind.
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