One Day I Wrote Her Name

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 essay
		A mortal thing so to immortalize;
		For I myself shall like to this decay,
		And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
		"Not so," quoth I; "let baser things devise
		To lie in dust, but you shall live by fame;
		My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
		And in the heavens write you glorious name:
		Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
		Our love shall live, and later life renew."