"One Day I Wrote her Name" by Edmund Spenser (Amoretti LXXV)

 

Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/8yE-1UNxWNg

Who wrote the poem "One Day I Wrote her Name"?

Edmund Spencer (1552 or 1553 – January 13, 1599)

Edmund Spencer was an English poet, often considered as one of the greatest poets in the English language. Little is known about his family and childhood. He attended the Merchant Taylor School and later studied literature and religion at Cambridge University. Along with his poetry, he also had a political career, serving various official posts including a secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland. After his first wife died in 1594, he soon married Elizabeth Boyle, for whom he wrote many love poems.

"One Day I Wrote her Name"  explanation.

This poem is part of Amoretti, a sonnet cycle written by Spenser to cherish his love and marriage to Elizabeth Boyle. In the poem, the speaker tries to write his beloved’s name on the sand only to be washed away by the waves. But he keeps trying to make his love for his beloved immortal.