TEXT ANALYSIS One day I wrote her name upon the strand

As the reader notes the sonnet bears the same title of its first line he understands it's part of a collection. It consists of 14 lines, as a result it's possible to identify the typical structure of a Petrarchan sonnet (8+6).

Considering the title, the reader expects the poem deals with a record of the poet's memory because it's used the first person and One day  indicates a past chronological time.

In the first quatrain is introduced the situation: near the beach the poet wrote a lady's name on the sand, but the waves of the sea erased his sign once. He wrote it again but vainly: the tied cancelled it twice. In the second quatrain the point of view changes radically: the reader bears the lady's voice which was telling the poet  he is vain because he's trying to make immortal something that must and had to end, her life. Her name is washed away by the waves as her life is destined to finish.

The lady affirmed mortal things have to die.

In the first tercet the man is speaking again. He tells the lady what she said isn't true, his opinion is different therefore he invites the lady to let only base things die, but her name, her virtues should be eternized by his sonnet, by his everlasting words. He wants she lives forever in the glory of the sky.

In the last few lines the poet concludes the poem saying that when they die their love will be forever and will give a new meaning to their lives.

The first octave has the function to introduce the situation and to show the two different points of view about immortality according to the man and than to the lady. The seaside setting gives the idea of something changing continuously, the fatal transformation, indeed the relationship between the lady and the poet changes. The reader can notes a repetition of syntax in the first words of each line in the first quatrain and it could suggest the repetition and fatality of the events. Paynes introduces directly what the man felt: suffering and torments. These feelings are suggested also by phonological sounds: the alliteration of "V" and the assonance of "A, M, P"( plosive sounds ).

The long vowel sounds create distance from the reader and what he's reading.

The sestet tries to answer the indirect question put in the octave: indeed a wording ? to the poet, only poetry can give eternal life to love.

In conclusion just a little lexical note: vertues rare is exactly the lexical translation from Petrarch's Italian " virtue rare", indeed in English should be "rare virtues".