William Shakespeare, Sonnet lxxxi
O I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
4
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,
8
When you entombed in all 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,
12
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.