- If thou survive my well-contented day,
- When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
- And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
- These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
- Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
- And though they be outstripp’d by every pen,
- Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
- Exceeded by the height of happier men.
- O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
- ‘Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
- A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
- To march in ranks of better equipage:
- But since he died and poets better prove,
- Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.