One day I wrote her name upon the strand, <br />But came the waves and washed it away: <br />Agayne I wrote it with a second hand, <br />But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray. <br />"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay. <br />A mortall thing so to immortalize, <br />For I my selve shall lyke to this decay, <br />and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize." <br />"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize, <br />To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame: <br />My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, <br />And in the heavens wryte your glorious name. <br />Where whenas death shall all the world subdew, <br />Our love shall live, and later life renew."<br /><br />Edmund Spenser<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-75/
