Summary

The speaker begins by writing his beloved's name on the beach. Soon, though, waves "washed it away" (2). The speaker writes it again, and it is again washed away. His beloved tells him that it is impossible to immortalize something as impermanent as a human life, like hers. She will one day be wiped out just like her name in the water. The speaker, however, insists that she will live forever in "fame" (9). His poetry will "eternize" her virtue (10). Her name will be written in heaven, and even after everyone has died, their love will "live" (14).

Analysis

This poem is part of Spenser’s sonnet cycle, titled Amoretti. That is a word of Spenser’s own invention, which, translated from the Italian, would mean something like “little loves.” The sonnet was an Italian form, a love poem of exactly fourteen lines following a set rhyme...