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.
In plain English
Either I'll outlive you and write your epitaph, or you'll outlive me and be forgotten while I rot in the ground. Your memory will survive death itself, even though everything about me will vanish from the world's mind.
You'll have a name that lives forever, while I'll disappear completely once I'm gone. I'll get a plain grave; you'll be entombed in human memory and reverence. My poems will be your monument, read by eyes not yet born, and future generations will speak your name long after everyone alive today is dead.
My pen has the power to keep you alive in a way that transcends mortality. You'll live on in the mouths of people breathing the future air—immortal through the very words I'm writing now.
