¿Quién me creyera en tiempo venidero
Si extremara en mis versos la verdad?
Igual que un sepulcro guardar quiero
De tus dotes al menos la mitad.
Si hablara de tus ojos esplendentes,
Si pintara al pintarte el ideal,
La edad nueva al juzgar dijera: Mientes;
Tanto cielo jamás fue terrenal.
Y en mis mustios papeles tu silueta
Fuera chochez de Viejo nominada.
Tus derechos, vehemencias de poeta,
O, una vieja canción exagerada.
Mas si en un hijo entonces florecieras,
En él y en mí, dos veces revivieras.
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.