Michael Drayton

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.
...

FAIR stood the wind for France
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
   Longer will tarry;
...

To Despair

I ever love where never hope appears,
Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,
...

How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
That now is coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no Poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapt in their winding-sheet.
...

NEAR to the silver Trent
   SIRENA dwelleth;
She to whom Nature lent
   All that excelleth;
...

Thou leaden brain, which censur'st what I write,
And say'st my lines be dull and do not move,
I marvel not thou feel'st not my delight,
Which never felt'st my fiery touch of love.
...

My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
Who should I think the murther should commit,
Since but yourself there was no creature by,
But only I, guiltless of murth'ring it?
...

My Fair, if thou wilt register my love,
A world of volumes shall thereof arise;
Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shalt prove
A second flood, down-raining from mine eyes.
...

You not alone, when you are still alone,
O God, from you that I could private be.
Since you one were, I never since was one;
Since you in me, my self since out of me,
...

Calling to mind, since first my love begun,
Th'uncertain times oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As it please the Fates, by their resistless force.
...

How many paltry foolish painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet!
...

Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit
A thousand nymph-like and enamour'd Graces,
The Goddesses of Memory and Wit,
Which there in order take their several places;
...

Calling to mind since first my love begun,
Th' incertain times oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As t' please the fates by their resistless force:
...

As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn,
With proverbs thus each other entertain:
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin;
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again;
...

Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance;
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
...

To Humor

You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
There was a time you told me that you would;
...

Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlined so,
Smok'd with my sighs and blotted with my tears,
...

Love's Lunacy

Why do I speak of joy, or write of love,
When my heart is the very den of horror,
...

Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave;
Methinks 'tis long since first these wars begun;
Nor thou nor I the better yet can have;
Bad is the match where neither party won.
...

What? Dost thou mean to cheat me of my heart?
To take all mine and give me none again?
Or have thine eyes such magic or that art
That what they get they ever do retain?
...