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 doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself 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 whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.
-Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 75
As teenagers, we like to think that we know the answers to the big things in life. Everything dies, so savor every moment, yadayadayada. But to actually live and breathe the things we to say (walk the walk, maybe) is a totally different story. This sonnet was written by someone who lived. Spenser lived, loved, and maybe gained enough wisdom to write this sonnet and share it with the world. He laments our short, mortal lifespans and displays his eternal feelings for his love. He compares his life to marks in the sand wiped clean by the tides. Spenser is, unlike me, a man fully aware of himself as well of his surroundings.
He, has, in a way, immortalized his love, since we still know about her over 400 years after this sonnet was written.
Maybe 400 years from now someone will stumble upon this blog...
