Amoretti: Sonnet 75 - Edmund Spenser

One 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 prey.
"Vayne man," said she, "that dost in vaine assay,
A mortall thing so to immortalize;
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name be 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 heavens wryte your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."