81
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. 4
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. 8
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; 12
You still shall live,—such virtue hath my pen,—
Where breath most breathes,—even in the mouths of men.
82
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 4
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforc'd to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. 8
And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathiz'd
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend; 12
And their gross painting might be better us'd
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.
6 to all the world: in the world's memory
11 to be: of future generations
2 attaint: disgrace
6 limit: mark, goal
8 time-bettering days: present greater age
10 strained:exaggerated
11 sympathiz'd: matched
