One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand
by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

  1  (a)  One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
  2  (b)  But came the waves and washed it away:
  3  (a)  Again I wrote it with a second hand,
  4  (b)  But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
  5  (b)  Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
  6  (c)  A mortal thing so to immortalize!
  7  (b)  For I myself shall like to this decay,
  8  (c)  And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
  9  (c)  Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
10  (d)  To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
11  (c)  My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
12  (d)  And in the heavens write your glorious name;
13  (e)  Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
14  (e)  Our love shall live, and later life renew.