Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Friendship | | “Not marble, not the gilded monuments” | | William Shakespeare (1564–1616) |
| | Sonnet LV.
NOT marble, not the gilded monuments | |
| Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; | |
| But you shall shine more bright in these contents, | |
| Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. | |
| When wasteful war shall statues overturn, | 5 |
| And broils root out the work of masonry, | |
| Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn | |
| The living record of your memory. | |
| ’Gainst death and all oblivious enmity | |
| Shall you pace forth: your praise shall still find room | 10 |
| Even in the eyes of all posterity, | |
| That wear this world out to the ending doom. | |
| So, till the judgment that yourself arise, | |
| You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes. | | | | |
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