English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 70. Love’s Farewell |
| | | Michael Drayton (1563–1631) |
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| SINCE there’s no help, come let us kiss and part,— | |
| Nay I have done, you get no more of me; | |
| And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, | |
| That thus so cleanly I myself can free; | |
| Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, | 5 |
| And when we meet at any time again, | |
| Be it not seen in either of our brows | |
| That we one jot of former love retain. | |
| Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath, | |
| When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, | 10 |
| When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, | |
| And innocence is closing up his eyes, | |
| —Now if thou would’st, when all have given him over, | |
| From death to life thou might’st him yet decover! | |
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