Sonnet 81

Sonnet 81
Detail of old-spelling text
Sonnet 81 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1



Q2



Q3



C

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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—William Shakespeare[1]

Sonnet 81 is one of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, and published in a quarto titled Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1609. It is a part of the Fair Youth series of sonnets, and the fourth sonnet of the Rival Poet series.

  1. ^ Shakespeare, William. Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Bloomsbury Arden 2010. p. 273 ISBN 9781408017975.