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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet 5. Nothing but “No!” and “I!”, and “I!” and “No!”

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.]

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!”.

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.

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!”.