One day I wrote her name upon the strand, <br />But came the waves and washed it away: <br />Again I wrote it with a second hand, <br />But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. <br />"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, <br />A mortal thing so to immortalize; <br />For I myself shall like to this decay, <br />And eke my name be wiped out likewise." <br />"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise <br />To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: <br />My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, <br />And in the heavens write your glorious name: <br />Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, <br />Our love shall live, and later life renew."<br /><br />Edmund Spenser<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/amoretti-lxxv-one-day-i-wrote-her-name/
