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.

未來的時代誰會相信我的詩，
如果它充滿了你最高的美德？
雖然，天知道，它只是一座墓地
埋著你的生命和一半的本色。
如果我寫得出你美目的流盼，
用清新的韻律細數你的秀妍，
未來的時代會說："這詩人撒謊：
這樣的天姿哪里會落在人間！"
于是我的詩冊，被歲月所熏黃，
就要被人藐視，像饒舌的老頭；
你的真容被誣作詩人的瘋狂，
以及一支古歌的夸張的節奏：
但那時你若有個兒子在人世，
你就活兩次：在他身上，在詩里