Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name

Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name

Original Text
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion (P. S. for W. Ponsonby, 1595). STC 23076. Facs.edn. (Scolar Press, 1968). PR 2360 A5 1595E Robarts Library
2But came the waves and washed it away:
3Again I wrote it with a second hand,
4But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
5"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
6A mortal thing so to immortalize;
7For I myself shall like to this decay,
8And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
9"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
10To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
11My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
12And in the heavens write your glorious name:
13Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
14Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Notes

1] A series of eighty-eight sonnets, published in 1595 and probably written between 1592 and 1594 during the poet's wooing of Elizabeth Boyle. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1595
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
2RP 1.113.