O happy earth, Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread! - Edmund Spenser

"One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washéd 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," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Through thicke and thin, both over banke and bush In hope her to attaine by hooke or crooke.

Aye me, how many perils do enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall?
Were not, that heavenly grace doth him uphold,
And steadfast truth acquite him out of all.