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.
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POEMS BY EDMUND SPENSER |
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