Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

Sonnet: ‘Since there ’s no help, come let us kiss and part’

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,

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,

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 recover!