Ahh, Poetry... ( Part I )

I have never been one for poetry. 

Do not get me wrong, I do enjoy it, but I am not one of those people who takes up a book of poems in his or her free time just for the sake relishing some poet's use (or misuse☺) of poetic license. That said, I have thoroughly enjoyed that which I have taken the time to study in a classroom setting. Basically, I have enjoyed nearly all of the poetry I have read (which is not much), but I still have not taken the time to study it outside of the classroom.

 Several years ago, though, I studied the following poem in an British Literature course. Its imagery struck me and since then it has become one of my favorite poems. (You can probably tell from the premise of this post that the lists of  "poems that I've read" and "my favorite poems" are almost identical, so "favorite" probably does not mean much!)  Anyhow, tell me what you think!

This was taken last year early one morning at Onslow Beach, NC. It's rather an appropriate backdrop for the poem, don't you agree?

 Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spencer

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 doest in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eek 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 whenas Death shall all the world subdue,

Out love shall live, and later life renew.