Edmund Spenser(1552–1599)
Sonnet 75 ("One day I wrote her name upon the strand")
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,shore
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with 0 a second hand, 0for I time
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.prey
Vayne man, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,attempt
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.also
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize 0quoth I plan
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.