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,yellowed 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.
翻譯：
在未來的日子裡誰會相信我的詩文，
如果那裡充滿了你應得的佳評，
雖然，天知道，這詩篇只是一座墳，
埋著難以顯示你一半品質的一生。
如果我能描繪出你那雙目的神韻，
用清新的詩句鐫刻你俊美的儀容，
未來的人們會說我的詩虛飾失真，
造化之工永遠也畫不到凡夫俗生。
於是我那被歲月薰黃了的詩作，
將像一位嚼舌老人那樣被人輕視，
你的真相也被人稱作詩的妄說，
稱它是一篇言過其實的古舊詩。
但是你若有個孩子能夠活到那時，
你便雙重地活在他的身上和我詩裡。
推薦理由：這是莎士比亞154首十四行情詩中相當精妙的一首。它妙在詩人對藝術與現實二者關係的闡釋，妙在作者心中裝著未來的讀者；更妙在莎士比亞把直面現實的人文主義精神，作為本詩之魂。做為莎翁的忠實讀者你怎麼能錯過呢？
