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Shakespeare's Sonnets: Or I shall live your epitaph to make

Sonnet 81
Shakespeare, William
1Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
2Or you survive when I in earth am rotten.
3From hence your memory death cannot take,
4Although in me each part will be forgotten.
5Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
6Though I (once gone) to all the world must die.
7The earth can yield me but a common grave.
8When you entombèd in men's eyes shall lie,
9Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
10Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
11And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse.
12When all the breathers of this world are dead,
13    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
14    Where breath most breathes, ev'n in the mouths of men.

Notes

1] Or] either. Back to Line
2] Extrametrical, like line 4. Back to Line
7] common grave] general burial ground. Back to Line
14] ev'n] euen Q. Back to Line