Sonnet LXXV from Amoretti
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, 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.
Spenser argues that while they both will die some day, their lives will live on through his writing. Poetry will forever exceed human life. Here we are, 500 years later, still studying his work. Their love can never be erased; so long as his poetry is still read all over the world, the moments he has elucidated in his sonnets will unceasingly be relived through the reader’s mind – granting them both immortality.
One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand