Sonnet · Death & Loss
Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make
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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“Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-81
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Death & Loss
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 482489df19913365…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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