"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… - Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

a mortal thing so to immortalize

Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your self ye daily such doe see:
But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,
Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew:
But onely that is permanent and free
From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew.
That is true beautie: that doth argue you
To be divine and borne of heavenly seed:
Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true
And perfect beauty did at first proceed.
He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made,
All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade.

Besides, the sundry motions of your Spheares,
So sundry waies and fashions as clerkes faine,
“Some in short space, and some in longer yeares;
What is the same but alteration plaine?
Onely the starrie skie doth still remaine:
Yet do the Starres and Signes therein still moue,
And euen itself is mov’d, as wizards saine.
But ALL THAT MOUETH, DOTH MUTATION LOUE:
Therefore both you and them to me I subiect proue.

But nothing new to him was that same pain;
Nor pain at all; for he so oft had tried . . .
and lov'd so oft in vain.