Sonnet 17

1. Who will believe my verse in time to come,

2. If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

3. Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

4. Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:

5. If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

6. And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

7. The age to come would say 'This Poet lies,

8. Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

9. So should my papers (yellow'd with their age)

10. Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,

11. And your true rights be term'd a Poet's rage

12. And stretched metre of an Antique song.

13. But were some child of yours alive that time,

14. You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.

You Live Twice

Dedication: To Henry

Oxford tells Henry that no one in times to come will believe his characterization of Henry’s beauty. Telling him as well of the metaphorical nature of this description which as he tells us conceals his true identity. Telling him that his “rights” are a motivation for a “poet’s rage” he alludes to Henry’s true nature. He finishes with the thought that despite it all if some descendent of his lives to one day to read of his truth that he will live twice in the personage of the child and in his poetry.

1st Quatrain: (1-4)

Oxford expressing the incredulity of future generations to Henry’s true nature lines 1 & 2. Then expressing his remorse that his verse is the only place that Henry truth is revealed and then too incompletely in lines 3 & 4.

2nd Quatrain: (5-8)

Expressing as well that future generations wouldn’t believe Henry’s real beauty either. That such physical beauty is not possible in mere mortals.

3rd Quatrain: (9-12)

Reflecting on the way his poetry would be seen and not believed and that Henry’s rightful place would possibly be seen as some exaggeration and insanity on the part of the poet (but likely also an embedded message of an expression of the poet’s anger)

couplet (13-14),

Finally Oxford attempting to provide a consolation for never being a monarch and never having the immortality and legacy which goes with it.


Commentary:

This sonnet now to a mature Henry (possibly early to mid twenties). Oxford expressing one of his last bits of fatherly love for the son for whom the world may possibly never get to know his true greatness and royal bearing. Expressing that without this truth of him his true beauty goes unrecognized by the wider audience for which it should be shown.

Another to Henry that expresses an eternity promised. However this time the eternity is not to come from eternal lines but from the memorial of the sonnet. This is such an obvious contrast with the preceding sonnet and such a change of message that it most likely results more from the way the publishers put together the sonnets. However the grouping does certainly call attention to the two types of eternity and certainly ties back to the dedication and the point of the publication.

The connection of the previous sonnets is a most important aspect of this reading. And I hope readers will appreciate this sonnet and the remaining 16 to come are actually a culmination and the others are a preceding "crescendo" to this grand finale and triumphant flourish. One consumed with the notion "procreation" in this metaphorical form.