One Day I Wrote Her Name�
One Day I Wrote Her Name� Spenser The Text of the Poem 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 men, 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 hevens wryte your glorious name. Where whenas death shall al the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew. With Amoretti Spenser descended on the permanent paradox, namely the principle of change inherent in nature that causes merciless mutations to everything in this world. This is a paradox which baffled the European intellectuals historically since...