Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures

An Allusion to the Phoenix

'Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round
Of the birds' kind, the Phoenix is alone,
Which best by you of living things is known;
None like to that, none like to you is found.
Your beauty is the hot and splend'rous sun,
The precious spices be your chaste desire,
Which being kindled by that heav'nly fire,
Your life so like the Phoenix's begun;
Yourself thus burned in that sacred flame,
With so rare sweetness all the heav'ns perfuming,
Again increasing as you are consuming,
Only by dying born the very same;
And, wing'd by fame, you to the stars ascend,
So you of time shall live beyond the end.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines

To the Shadow

Letters and lines we see are soon defac'd,
Metals do waste and fret with canker's rust,
The diamond shall once consume to dust,
And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac'd;
Paper and ink can paint but naked words,
To write with blood of force offends the sight;
And if with tears I find them all too light,
And sighs and signs a silly hope affotds,
O sweetest shadow, how thou serv'st my turn,
Which still shalt be, as long as there is sun,
Nor, whilst the world is, never shalt be done,
Whilst moon shall shine or any fire shall burn;
That everything whence shadow doth proceed
May in my shadow my love's story read.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet XV: Since to Obtain Thee

His Remedy for Love

Since to obtain thee nothing will be stead,
I have a med'cine that shall cure my love,
The powder of her heart dried, when she is dead,
That gold nor honor ne'er had power to move,
Mixt with her tears, that ne'er her true-love crost
Nor at fifteen ne'er long'd to be a bride,
Boil'd with her sighs in giving up the ghost,
That for her late deceased husband died;
Into the same then let a woman breathe,
That, being chid, did never word reply,
With one thrice-married's prayers, that did bequeath
A legacy to stale virginity.
If this receipt have not the power to win me,
Little I'll say, but think the Devil's in me.

poem by Michael Drayton
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The Parting

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 wouldst, when all have given him over,
   From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love

To Humor

You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
There was a time you told me that you would;
But now again you will the same deny,
If it might please you, would to God you could.
What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither.
Nor love nor hate, how then? What will you do?
What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either,
Or will you love me and yet hate me, too?
Yet serves this not. What next? What other shift?
You will, and will not; what a coil is here.
I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,
And all this while I was mistaken there;
Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you:
You love in hate, by hate to make me love you.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me

There's nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste,
That in my days I may not see thee old,
That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac'd
Only two loop-holes then I might behold;
That lovely, arched, ivory, polish'd brow
Defac'd with wrinkles that I might but see;
Thy dainty hair, so curl'd and crisped now,
Like grizzled moss upon some aged tree;
Thy cheek, now flush with roses, sunk and lean;
Thy lips with age as any wafer thin;
Thy pearly teeth out of thy head so clean
That, when thou feed'st, thy nose shall touch thy chin.
These lines that now thou scorn'st, which should delight thee,
Then would I make thee read but to despite thee.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet LIII: Clear Anker

Another to the River Anker

Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrin'd saint, my fair Idea, lies,
O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
The crystal stream refined by her eyes,
Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the Spring
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers,
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Among the dainty dew-impearled flowers;
Say thus, fair Brook, when thou shalt see thy Queen,
"Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wand'ring years,
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been,
And here to thee he sacrific'd his tears."
Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone,
And thou, sweet Anker, art my Helicon.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet XII: That Learned Father

To the Soul

That learned Father, who so firmly proves
The Soul of man immortal and divine,
And doth the several offices define:
Anima - Gives her that name, as she the Body moves;
Amor - Then is she Love, embracing charity;
Animus - Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind
Mens - Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind;
Memoria - As intellectual, it is Memory;
Ratio - In judging, Reason only is her name;
Sensus - In speedy apprehension, it is Sense;
Conscientia - In right or wrong, they call her Conscience;
Spiritus - The Spirit, when it to Godward doth inflame.
These of the Soul the several functions be,
Which my Heart, lighten'd by thy love, doth see.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain

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.
But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv'd,
Whose stomach unto gall hath turn'd thy food,
Whose senses, like poor prisoners, hunger-starv'd,
Whose grief hath parch'd thy body, dried thy blood,
Thou which hast scorned life and hated death,
And in a moment mad, sober, glad, and sorry,
Thou which hast bann'd thy thoughts and curs'd thy breath
With thousand plagues, more than in Purgatory,
Thou thus whose spirit Love in his fire refines,
Come thou, and read, admire, applaud my lines.

poem by Michael Drayton
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Sonnet LIX: As Love and I

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;
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I;
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow";
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply;
"A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe";
"Labor is light where Love," quoth I, "doth pay";
Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far borne";
Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the bye away";
"You have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn.
And having thus awhile each other thwarted,
Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.

poem by Michael Drayton
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