Lxxiv

Most happy letters! fram’d by skilfull trade, With which that happy name was first desynd The which three times thrise happy hath me made, With guifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first ray being to me gave by kind, From mothers womb deriv’d by dew descent: The second is my sovereigne Queene most kind, That honour and large richesse to me lent: The third my Love, my lives last ornament, By whom my spirit out of dust was raysed, To speake her prayse and glory excellent, Of all alive most worthy to be praysed. Ye three Elizabeths! for ever live, That three such graces did unto me give.

LXXV.

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 tyde, and made my paynes his pray. “Vayne man,” sayd she, “that doest in vaine assay A mortall thing so to immortalize; For I my selve shall lyke to this decay, And eke my name bee wyped 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, when as death shall all the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew.”