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Sonnet 75

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 pray.
"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
and eek my name bee 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."

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Comments

  • Laura Sada
    April 27, 2005
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    The beauty of this poem is that the lady has lasted so long past her death through the poem, as he promised. The irony is that her name is not mentioned.


  • November 25, 2004
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    I think, it is best poem in the world; I'm agree with Spenser in poetry in the only thing that can survive to the flow of time