On this day in literature . . .
~ 1599 ~ Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene) dies in Westminster, age 46.
In this sonnet by Spenser, the narrator speaks of the power of literature to immortalize, a theme that writers have sounded over the ages.
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my paines his pray.
Vayne man, said she, that doest in vaine assay,
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wiped out lykewize.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize
And in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
In this sonnet by Spenser, the narrator speaks of the power of literature to immortalize, a theme that writers have sounded over the ages.
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my paines his pray.
Vayne man, said she, that doest in vaine assay,
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wiped out lykewize.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize
And in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
posted by Andrea at 9:49 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks, Andrea for the hymn. I've been reading your blog as well as Dappled Things regularyly and look forward to your posts. I had been bemoaning the lack of hymns in one of our services at church and so have been playing them in my house and car instead of all the talk radio that is on the air. I feel a lot better. (smile) Thanks.
Post a Comment
<< Home