English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 112. Thirty-second Sonnet |
| | | William Shakespeare (1564–1616) |
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| IF thou survive my well-contented day | |
| When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, | |
| And shalt by fortune once more re-survey | |
| These poor rude lines of thy deceaséd lover; | |
| Compare them with the bettering of the time, | 5 |
| And though they be outstripp’d by every pen, | |
| Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme | |
| Exceeded by the height of happier men. | |
| O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought— | |
| ‘Had my friend’s muse grown with this growing age, | 10 |
| A dearer birth than this his love had brought, | |
| To march in ranks of better equipage: | |
| But since he died, and poets better prove, | |
| Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’. | |
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