#sonnet 75

[emilygracefleck]

"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."

Edmund Spenser (sonnet 75)

[asktheheirofslytherin]

You might like Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spencer. It's about immortality through the power of words, it's lovely.

I confess not to have read this one. Not a surprise - it is a muggle, a rhyming sonnet, and written in old style language, all things that would repel me. 

Words do grant a modicum of immortality, in a way, until those words, too, slip into oblivion. Most people are not Shakespeare or Beedle. Our words will eventually slip into obsoleteness and die - whether they be backed by love, as Spencer suggests - or no. 

[p-isforpoetry]

"Amoretti: Sonnet 75" by Edmund Spenser (read by Susan Sarandon)

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," (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."

Source: The Poets' Corner

[p-isforpoetry]

Sonnet 75 by William Shakespeare (read by David Tennant)

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had, or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,   Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

[babys-pink-room]

sonnet 75 // William Shakespeare

[babys-pink-room]

[floresenfermas]

Edmund Spenser: "Sonnet 75" (Amoretti)

[1/XI/2024]

[lafemmechauvesouris]

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure: Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had, or must from you be took.    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

Sonnet 75, William Shakespeare.

Sculpture by Yves Pires.