ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME

by: Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

      NE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
      But came the waves and washed it away:
      Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
      But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
      Vayne men, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,
      A mortall thing so to immortalize,
      For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
      And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.
      Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
      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 al the world subdew,
      Our love shall live, and later life renew.

MORE POEMS BY EDMUND SPENSER

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