English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 81. One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand |
| | | Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) |
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| ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand, | |
| But came the waves and washèd 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 | 5 |
| A mortal thing so to immortalise; | |
| For I myself shall like to this decay, | |
| And eke my name be wipèd out likewise. | |
| Not so (quod I); let baser things devise | |
| To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; | 10 |
| My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, | |
| And in the heavens write your glorious name: | |
| Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue, | |
| Our love shall live, and later life renew. | |
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