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

My Love is Like to Ice

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

 

 

"My Love is Like to Ice"  
Edmund Spenser