| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Idea | | Sonnet 5. Nothing but “No!” and “I!”, and “I!” and “No!” | | Michael Drayton (1563–1631) |
| | [First printed in 1599 (No. 8), and in all later editions.] |
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NOTHING but “No!” and “I!”, and “I!” and “No!”. | |
| “How falls it out so strangely?” you reply. | |
| I tell ye, Fair! I’ll not be answered so! | |
| With this affirming “No!”, denying “I!”. | |
| I say “I love!” You slightly answer “I!”. | 5 |
| I say “You love!” You pule me out a “No!”. | |
| I say “I die!” You echo me with “I!”. | |
| “Save me!” I cry; and sigh me out a “No!”. | |
| Must Woe and I have naught but “No!” and “I!”? | |
| No “I!” am I, if I no more can have. | 10 |
| Answer no more! With silence make reply, | |
| And let me take myself what I do crave! | |
| Let “No!” and “I!” with I and you be so, | |
| Then answer “No!” and “I!”, and “I!” and “No!”. | | | |
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