The speaker looks forward to a time after his own death — his “well-contented day” — when the beloved friend might reread these rough, outdated poems. He knows that by then, literary fashion will have moved on; other pens will outstrip him, and his lines will seem poor. Yet he makes no claim for their artistic staying power. Instead, he asks the friend to keep them not for their style but for the affection they carry, setting aside any embarrassment over their “poor rude lines.” The closing couplet imagines the friend’s quiet resolution: to read newer poets for their craft, but Shakespeare’s verses for the love of the man who wrote them. The mood is intimate and sober, touched by mortality, but it settles into a calm reassurance that personal devotion outlasts the shifting judgments of taste.
Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day — Summary
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'.