Sonnet #81

Poems by William Shakespeare

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you. survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall
have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must
die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live,—such virtue hath my
pen,—
Where breath most breathes,—even in the
mouths of men.


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