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 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 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 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.