| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet LXXV. One day I wrote her name upon the strand | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand; | |
| But came the waves, and washed 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 immortalize; | |
| For I myself shall like to this decay, | |
| And eke my name be wiped out likewise. | |
| Not so, quoth I, let baser things devise | |
| To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: | 10 |
| My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, | |
| 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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