A random sonnet for the Bard’s birthday

I prefer Shakespeare the playwright to Shakespeare the poet, but I have a great edition of his sonnets. It has modern translations into Finnish by Kirsti Simonsuuri, with the facsimiles of the 1609 edition and annotations of each sonnet side by side with the originals. For Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, I chose a random sonnet from it. It turned out to be sonnet number 81, which I find it appropriate for the occasion with its sentiment of the poet’s loved one living on in his poems.

Or I shall liue your Epitaph to make,

Or you suruiue when I in earth am rotten,

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Altough in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortall life shall haue,

Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye,

The earth can yield me but a common graue,

When you intombed in mens eyes shall lye,

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall ore-read,

And toungs to be, your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead,

You still shall liue (such virtue hath my Pen)

Where breath most breaths, euen in the mouths of men.