One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand

sonnet

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

By Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

But came the waves and washed it away

Again I wrote it with a second hand

But came the tide,and made my pains his prey

''Vain man'',said she,''that dost in vain assay,

a mortal thing so to immortalize,

for I myself shall like to this decay,

and eek my name be wiped out likewise.''

''Not so'',(quoth I),''let baser things devise,

to die in dust,but you shall live by fame.

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

and in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

our love shall live,and later life renew.''