Monday, April 22, 2013

Benny Weisbrot--Sonnet 17


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.

This sonnet is the final sonnet of Shakespeare’s “Procreation sonnets.” In this sonnet, Shakespeare is imploring his lover, the young man, to have a child. Throughout the sonnet, Shakespeare is frustrated with himself, because he realizes that he will not be able to properly describe the young man’s beauty. On one hand, there are no words he can use to describe his beauty. On the other hand, if he finds those words, no one would ever believe him. In the end of the sonnet, in the rhyming couplet, he figures out a solution. He decides that if the young man has descendants, his beauty will last forever.
This sonnet contains the immortality through verse theme. This means that a person lives forever simply through literature. The young man will live forever, as long as people continue to read his sonnets. –Stephen Booth

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