- 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.