Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser
[Originally written 4/30/2020]
Now that our classes are virtual, things have changed up a bit. In my AP Literature class, I thought this would mean continuing on Bleak House, but instead my teacher (the og Mr. Touma) decided to introduce us to great English poetry. While some of it may not be... the best, there are gems scattered throughout. One of our poems today was Sonnet 75 by Sir Edmund Spenser:
"One day I wrote her name upon the strand;
But came the waves, and washed 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, quoth I, let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
Wow. This sonnet has a lot of moving parts that make it "wow". As a poet-in-training myself, I have spent some time pondering about the purpose of my pen. I keep most of my work to myself in a little Notes section on my iphone, where it's just another piece of data among gigabytes of other storage. It's easy to erase it and lose it amongst the tides of an ocean.
As the Ocean in the poem said, it is sure sign of vanity to write feelings into words (to immortalize that which is mortal in nature), when the tide may destroy the words or the fire may burn a paper.
No - Unlike Sir Edmund Spenser, I am not writing somebody's name on the sand just for it to disappear under the rush of the tides. I believe that my poetry/writing captures ~my ephermal emotions~, whose colors and structures I may not be able to see as clearly again. Words give these feelings a structure, and immortalizes it with rhyme and a cadence that only I hear (maybe others get that part too?).
I am eternalizing my virtues into verses.
Life moves on, and so may my feelings and opinions. My eyes may not always be so clear amidst the fog of an uncertain future, and my mind/heart will not always react the same way to the ephermal emotions which I experience. And for that reason, I write. While my eyes are open, I write about the blinding colors. While my eyes are closed, I write about the darkness around me. But I write, and will continue to write - as long as my verses hold my virtues.
