Sonnet LXXV

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 my self shall like to this decay,
and eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so, (quoth I) let baser things devise,
to die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
my verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
and in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where when as death shall all the world subdue,
our love shall live, and later life renew.

"Sonnet LXXV"

Edmund Spenser

The Rose of the World

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.


We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.


Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

"The Rose of the World"

William Butler Yeats

(as found in "The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics")