Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Sonnet LXXV (One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand)
From Amoretti, 1595

 
ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,                    beach
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
5       “Vain man”, said she, “that dost in vain assay		  attempt

A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise”.                           also
“Not so”, quod I, “let baser things devise                               contrive
10      To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;			
      
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew”.