Edmund Spenser

[One day I wrote her name upon the strand] (1595)

	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,
4	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,
8	And eek my name be wiped out likewise.”
	“Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devise
	To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
	My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
12	And in the heavens write your glorious name;
	Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
	Our love shall live, and later life renew.”