William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet LXXXI
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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