Shake-speares Sonnets, Never before Imprinted/Sonnet 32
For other versions of this work, see Sonnet 32 (Shakespeare).
32
If thou suruiue my well contented daie,
When that churle death my bones with dust shall couer
And shalt by fortune once more re-suruay:
These poore rude lines of thy deceased Louer:
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be out-stript by euery pen,
Reserue them for my loue, not for their rime,
Exceeded by the hight of happier men.
Oh then voutsafe me but this louing thought,
Had my friends Muse growne with this growing age,
A dearer birth then this his loue had brought
To march in ranckes of better equipage:
But since he died and Poets better proue,
Theirs for their stile ile read, his for his loue.
If thou suruiue my well contented daie,
When that churle death my bones with dust shall couer
And shalt by fortune once more re-suruay:
These poore rude lines of thy deceased Louer:
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be out-stript by euery pen,
Reserue them for my loue, not for their rime,
Exceeded by the hight of happier men.
Oh then voutsafe me but this louing thought,
Had my friends Muse growne with this growing age,
A dearer birth then this his loue had brought
To march in ranckes of better equipage:
But since he died and Poets better proue,
Theirs for their stile ile read, his for his loue.