[ { "title": "Sonnet LVI: When Like an Eaglet", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "When like an eaglet I first found my Love,", "For that the virtue I thereof would know,", "Upon the nest I set it forth to prove", "If it were of that kingly kind or no;", "But it no sooner say my Sun appear,", "But on her rays with open eyes it stood,", "To show that I had hatch'd it for the air", "And rightly came from that brave mounting brood;", "And, when the plumes were summ'd with sweet desire,", "To prove the pinions it ascends the skies;", "Do what I could, it needsly would aspire", "To my Soul's Sun, those two celestial eyes.", "Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone,", "It after thee is, like an eaglet, flown." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LXI: Since There's No Help", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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 giv'n him over,", "From death to life thou might'st him yet recover." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXV: O Why Should Nature", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "O why should Nature niggardly restrain", "That foreign nations relish not our tongue?", "Else should my lines glide on the waves of Rhene", "And crown the Pyrens with my living song.", "But, bounded thus, to Scotland get you forth,", "Thence take you wing unto the Orcades;", "There let my verse get glory in the North,", "Making my sighs to thaw the frozen seas;", "And let the Bards within that Irish isle,", "To whom my Muse with fiery wing shall pass,", "Call back the stiff-neck'd rebels from exile,", "And mollify the slaught'ring Gallowglass;", "And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,", "Let wolves and bears be charmed with my verse." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXVI: Thou Purblind Boy", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Cupid Conjured", "", "Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack", "To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me,", "And suffer'd her to glory in my wrack,", "Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee:", "By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,", "By thy fair mother's unavoided power,", "By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears", "When she was rapt to the infernal bower,", "By thine own loved Psyche, by the fires", "Spent on thine alters flaming up to heav'n,", "By all true lovers' sighs, vows, and desires,", "By all the wounds that ever thou hast giv'n:", "I conjure thee by all that I have nam'd", "To make her love, or, Cupid, be thou damn'd." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet X: To Nothing Fitter", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To nothing fitter can I thee compare", "Than to the son of some rich penny-father,", "Who, having now brought on his end with care,", "Leaves to his son all he had heap'd together;", "This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,", "To one man gives, doth on another spend,", "Then here he riots, yet among the rest", "Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.", "Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste,", "False friends thy kindness, born but to deceive thee,", "Thy love that is on the unworthy plac'd,", "Time hath thy beauty, which with age will leave thee;", "Only that little which to me was lent", "I give thee back, when all the rest is spent." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "To the Reader of These Sonnets", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Into these Loves who but for Passion looks,", "At this first sight here let him lay them by", "And seek elsewhere, in turning other books,", "Which better may his labor satisfy.", "No far-fetch'd sigh shall ever wound my breast,", "Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring,", "Nor in Ah me's my whining sonnets drest;", "A libertine, fantasticly I sing.", "My verse is the true image of my mind,", "Ever in motion, still desiring change,", "And as thus to variety inclin'd,", "So in all humours sportively I range.", "My Muse is rightly of the English strain,", "That cannot long one fashion entertain." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Love's Lunacy", "", "Why do I speak of joy, or write of love,", "When my heart is the very den of horror,", "And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove,", "With all his torments and infernal terror?", "What should I say? What yet remains to do?", "My brain is dry with weeping all too long,", "My sighs be spent in uttering my woe,", "And I want words wherewith to tell my wrong;", "But, still distracted in Love's lunacy,", "And, bedlam-like, thus raging in my grief,", "Now rail upon her hair, then on her eye,", "Now call her Goddess, then I call her thief,", "Now I deny her, then I do confess her,", "Now do I curse her, then again I bless her." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLIII: Why Should Your Fair Eyes", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace", "Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit,", "Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place,", "Get not one glance to recompense my merit?", "So doth the plowman gaze the wand'ring star,", "And only rest contented with the light,", "That never learn'd what constellations are", "Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight.", "O why should Beauty, custom to obey,", "To their gross sense apply herself so ill?", "Would God I were as ignorant as they,", "When I am made unhappy by my skill,", "Only compell'd on this poor good to boast:", "Heav'ns are not kind to them that know them most." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXI: A Witless Galant", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "A witless gallant a young wench that woo'd", "(Yet his dull spirit her not one jot could move),", "Entreated me, as e'er I wish'd his good,", "To write him but one sonnet to his love;", "When I, as fast as e'er my pen could trot,", "Pour'd out what first from quick invention came,", "Nor never stood one word thereof to blot,", "Much like his wit that was to use the same;", "But with my verses he his mistress won,", "Which doted on the dolt beyond all measure.", "But see, for you to Heav'n for phrase I run,", "And ransack all Apollo's golden treasure;", "Yet by my froth this fool his love obtains,", "And I lose you for all my love and pains." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Ode to the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, His Ballad of Agi", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Fair stood the wind for France,", "When we our sails advance;", "Nor now to prove our chance", "Longer will tarry;", "But putting to the main,", "At Caux, the mouth of Seine,", "With all his martial train", "Landed King Harry.", "", "And taking many a fort,", "Furnish'd in warlike sort,", "Marcheth towards Agincourt", "In happy hour;", "Skirmishing day by day", "With those that stopp'd his way,", "Where the French gen'ral lay", "With all his power.", "", "Which, in his height of pride,", "King Henry to deride,", "His ransom to provide", "To the King sending;", "Which he neglects the while,", "As from a nation vile", "Yet with an angry smile", "Their fall portending.", "", "And turning to his men", "Quoth our brave Henry then:", "\"Though they to one be ten", "Be not amazed.", "Yet have we well begun:", "Battles so bravely won", "Have ever to the sun", "By Fame been raised!", "", "\"And for myself,\" quoth he,", "\"This my full rest shall be:", "England ne'er mourn for me,", "Nor more esteem me;", "Victor I will remain,", "Or on this earth lie slain;", "Never shall she sustain", "Loss to redeem me!", "", "\"Poitiers and Cressy tell", "When most their pride did swell", "Under our swords they fell;", "No less our skill is", "Than when our grandsire great,", "Claiming the regal seat,", "By many a warlike feat", "Lopp'd the French lilies.\"", "", "The Duke of York so dread", "The eager vaward led;", "With the main Henry sped", "Amongst his henchmen:", "Excester had the rear,", "A braver man not there", "O Lord, how hot they were", "On the false Frenchmen!", "", "They now to fight are gone;", "Armour on armour shone;", "Drum now to drum did groan:", "To hear, was wonder;", "That, with cries they make,", "The very earth did shake;", "Trumpet to trumpet spake,", "Thunder to thunder.", "", "Well it thine age became,", "O noble Erpingham,", "Which didst the signal aim", "To our hid forces;", "When, from a meadow by,", "Like a storm suddenly,", "The English archery", "Stuck the French horses", "", "With Spanish yew so strong,", "Arrows a cloth-yard long,", "That like to serpents stung,", "Piercing the weather.", "None from his fellow starts,", "But playing manly parts,", "And like true English hearts", "Stuck close together.", "", "When down their bows they threw,", "And forth their bilboes drew,", "And on the French they flew,", "Not one was tardy;", "Arms were from shoulders sent,", "Scalps to the teeth were rent,", "Down the French peasants went:", "Our men were hardy.", "", "This while our noble King,", "His broad sword brandishing,", "Down the French host did ding,", "As to o'erwhelm it.", "And many a deep wound lent,", "His arms with blood besprent,", "And many a cruel dent", "Bruised his helmet.", "", "Gloster, that duke so good,", "Next of the royal blood,", "For famous England stood", "With his brave brother.", "Clarence, in steel so bright,", "Though but a maiden knight,", "Yet in that furious fight", "Scarce such another!", "", "Warwick in blood did wade,", "Oxford the foe invade,", "And cruel slaughter made,", "Still as they ran up.", "Suffolk his axe did ply;", "Beaumont and Willoughby", "Bare them right doughtily;", "Ferrers and Fanhope.", "", "Upon Saint Crispin's Day", "Fought was this noble fray,", "Which fame did not delay", "To England to carry.", "O when shall English men", "With such acts fill a pen,", "Or England breed again", "Such a King Harry?" ], "linecount": "120" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXII: Love, Banish'd Heav'n", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Love, banish'd Heav'n, on Earth was held in scorn,", "Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary,", "And wanting friends, though of a Goddess born,", "Yet crav'd the alms of such as passed by.", "I, like a man devout and charitable,", "Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wand'ring guest,", "With sighs and tears still furnishing his table", "With what might make the miserable blest.", "But this ungrateful, for my good desert,", "Entic'd my thoughts against me to conspire,", "Who gave consent to steal away my heart,", "And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.", "Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,", "No marvel then though charity grow cold." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXII: With Fools and Children", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Folly", "", "With fools and children, good discretion bears;", "Then, honest people, bear with Love and me,", "Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years,", "Amongst the rest of fools and children be;", "Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys,", "And, like a wanton, sports with every feather,", "And idiots still are running after boys,", "Then fools and children fitt'st to go together.", "He still as young as when he first was born,", "No wiser I than when as young as he;", "You that behold us, laugh us not to scorn;", "Give Nature thanks you are not such as we.", "Yet fools and children sometimes tell in play", "Some, wise in show, more fools indeed than they." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXI: Methinks I See", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To the Critic", "", "Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer,", "And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace,", "Turning my papers asks, \"What have we here?\"", "Making withal some filthy antic face.", "I fear no censure, nor what thou canst say,", "Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigor lose;", "Think'st thou my wit shall keep the pack-horse way", "That every dudgen low invention goes?", "Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest", "And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear,", "Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest", "That every dowdy, every trull, doth wear?", "Up to my pitch no common judgement flies;", "I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet LXII: When First I Ended", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "When first I ended, then I first began,", "The more I travell'd, further from my rest,", "Where most I lost, there most of all I wan,", "Pined with hunger rising from a feast.", "Methinks I fly, yet want I legs to go,", "Wise in conceit, in act a very sot,", "Ravish'd with joy amid a hell of woe;", "What most I seem, that surest am I not.", "I build my hopes a world above the sky,", "Yet with the mole I creep into the earth;", "In plenty I am starv'd with penury,", "And yet I surfeit in the greatest dearth.", "I have, I want, despair and yet desire,", "Burn'd in a sea of ice and drown'd amidst a fire." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LII: What? Dost Thou Mean", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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?", "Play not the tyrant, but take some remorse;", "Rebate thy spleen, if but for pity's sake;", "Or, cruel, if thou canst not, let us 'scourse,", "And, for one piece of thine, my whole heart take.", "But what of pity do I speak to thee,", "Whose breast is proof against complaint or prayer?", "Or can I think what my reward shall be", "From that proud beauty, which was my betrayer?", "What talk I of a heart, when thou hast none?", "Or, if thou hast, it is a flinty one." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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,", "The sad memorials of my miseries,", "Penn'd in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,", "My life's complaint in doleful elegies,", "With so pure love as Time could never boast.", "Receive the incense which I offer here,", "By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,", "My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,", "My soul's oblation to thy sacred name,", "Which name my Muse to highest heav'ns shall raise", "By chaste desire, true love, and virtuous praise." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still,", "Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest,", "Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,", "Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest;", "In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake,", "And when by means to drive it out I try,", "With greater torments then it me doth take,", "And tortures me in most extremity;", "Before my face it lays down my despairs,", "And hastes me on unto a sudden death,", "Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,", "And then in sighing to give up my breath.", "Thus am I still provok'd to every evil", "By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLII: Some Men There Be", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Some men there be which like my method well", "And much commend the strangeness of my vein;", "Some say I have a passing pleasing strain;", "Some say that im my humor I excel;", "Some, who not kindly relish my conceit,", "They say, as poets do, I use to feign,", "And in bare words paint out my passion's pain.", "Thus sundry men their sundry words repeat;", "I pass not, I, how men affected be,", "Nor who commends or discommends my verse;", "It pleaseth me, if I my woes rehearse,", "And in my lines if she my love may see.", "Only my comfort still consists in this,", "Writing her praise I cannot write amiss." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Miracle", "", "Some, misbelieving and profane in love,", "When I do speak of miracles by thee,", "May say, that thou art flattered by me,", "Who only write my skill in verse to prove.", "See miracles, ye unbelieving, see", "A dumb-born Muse made t'express the mind,", "A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind,", "One by thy name, the other touching thee;", "Blind were mine eyes, till they were seen of thine,", "And mine ears deaf by thy fame healed be,", "My vices cur'd by virtues sprung from thee,", "My hopes reviv'd, which long in grave had lien,", "All unclean thoughts, foul spirits, cast out in me", "Only by virtue that proceeds from thee." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXIV: Marvel Not, Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Admiration", "", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Ravish'd a world beyond the farthest thought,", "And knowing more than ever hath been taught,", "That I am only starv'd in my desire.", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Aiming at things exceeding all perfection,", "To Wisdom's self to minister correction,", "That I am only starv'd in my desire.", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Though my conceit I further seem to bend", "Than possibly invention can extend,", "And yet am only starv'd in my desire.", "If thou wilt wonder, here's the wonder, Love:", "That this to me doth yet no wonder prove." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XII: That Learned Father", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet VII: Love in a Humour", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Love in a humor play'd the prodigal", "And bade my Senses to a solemn feast;", "Yet, more to grace the company withal,", "Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.", "No other drink would serve this glutton's turn", "But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,", "Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,", "Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;", "Where, in his cups o'ercome with foul excess,", "Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian's part,", "And at the banquet in his drunkenness", "Slew his dear friend, my kind and truest Heart.", "A gentle warning, friends, thus may you see", "What 'tis to keep a drunkard company." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,", "Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess'd,", "Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,", "Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest.", "In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake;", "And when by means to drive it out I try,", "With greater torments then it me doth take,", "And tortures me in most extremity.", "Before my face it lays down my despairs,", "And hastes me on unto a sudden death;", "Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,", "And then in sighing to give up my breath.", "Thus am I still provok'd to every evil", "By this good-wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet IX: As Other Men", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "As other men, so I myself do muse", "Why in this sort I wrest invention so,", "And why these giddy metaphors I use,", "Leaving the path the greater part do go.", "I will resolve you: I am lunatic,", "And ever this in madmen you shall find,", "What they last thought of when the brain grew sick", "In most distraction they keep that in mind.", "Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,", "Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;", "\"Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit;", "Bear with me then, though troubled be my brain.", "With diet and correction men distraught", "(Not too far past) may to their wits be brought." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLV: Muses, Which Sadly Sit", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Muses, which sadly sit about my chair,", "Drown'd in the tears extorted by my lines,", "With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air,", "Painting my passions in these sad designs,", "Since she disdains to bless my happy verse,", "The strong-built trophies to her living fame,", "Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse,", "Wherein the world shall now entomb her name.", "Enclose my music, you poor senseless walls,", "Since she is deaf and will not hear my moans,", "Soften yourselves with every tear that falls,", "Whilst I, like Orpheus, sing to trees and stones,", "Which with my plaint seem yet with pity mov'd,", "Kinder than she whom I so long have lov'd." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XI: You Not Alone", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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,", "Transported from my self into your being;", "Though either distant, present yet to either,", "Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing,", "And only absent when we are together.", "Give me my self and take your self again,", "Devise some means but how I may forsake you;", "So much is mine that doth with you remain,", "That, taking what is mine, with me I take you;", "You do bewitch me; O, that I could fly", "From my self you, or from your own self I." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXVI: I Ever Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Despair", "", "I ever love where never hope appears,", "Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,", "And my life's hope would die, but for despair;", "My never-certain joy breeds ever-certain fears;", "Uncertain dread gives wings unto my hope,", "Yet my hope's wings are laden so with fear", "As they cannot ascend to my hope's sphere;", "Though fear gives them more than a heav'nly scope,", "Yet this large room is bounded with despair;", "So my love is still fetter'd with vain hope,", "And liberty deprives him of his scope,", "And thus am I imprison'd in the air.", "Then, sweet despair, awhile hold up thy head,", "Or all my hope for sorrow will be dead." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat;", "My words the hammers fashioning my desire;", "My breast the forge including all the heat;", "Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;", "My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth,", "Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning;", "Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth,", "In grievous passions my woes still bemoaning;", "My eyes with tears against the fire striving,", "Whose scorching gleed my heart to cinders turneth,", "But with these drops the flame again reviving,", "Still more and more it to my torment turneth.", "With Sisyphus thus do I roll the stone,", "And turn the wheel with damned Ixion." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LIII: Clear Anker", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XVII: Stay, Speedy Time", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Time", "", "Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass,", "From age to age what thou hast sought to see,", "One in whom all the excellencies be,", "In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass.", "Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass,", "And thy youth past in this pure mirror see,", "As the world's beauty in his infancy,", "What is was then, and thou before it was.", "Pass on, and to posterity tell this,", "Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been;", "Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen", "In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss,", "And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,", "That she is gone, her like again to see." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XLVI: Plain-Path'd Experience", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Plain-path'd Experience, th'unlearned's guide,", "Her simple followers evidently shows", "Sometimes what Schoolmen scarcely can decide,", "Nor yet wise Reason absolutely knows.", "In making trial of a murther wrought,", "If the vile actors of the heinous deed", "Near the dead body happily be brought,", "Oft it hath been prov'd the breathless corse will bleed.", "She's coming near, that my poor heart hath slain,", "Long since departed, to the world no more,", "The ancient wounds no longer can contain,", "But fall to bleeding as they did before.", "But what of this? Should she to death be led,", "It furthers justice, but helps not the dead." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet IV: Bright Star of Beauty", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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;", "In whose dear bosom sweet delicious Love", "Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear,", "Since he that blessed Paradise did prove,", "And leaves his mother's lap to sport him there.", "Let others strive to entertain with words;", "My soul is of a braver metal made;", "I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords;", "In me's that faith which Time cannot invade.", "Let what I praise be still made good by you;", "Be you most worthy, whilst I am most true." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LVIII: In Former Times", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "In former times such as had store of coin,", "In wars at home, or when for conquests bound,", "For fear that some their treasure should purloin,", "Gave it to keep to spirits within the ground,", "And to attend it them as strongly tied", "Till they return'd; home when they never came,", "Such as by art to get the same have tried", "From the strong Spirit by no means force the same;", "Nearer men come, that further flies away,", "Striving to hold it strongly in the deep.", "E'en as this Spirit, so you alone do play", "With those rich beauties Heav'n gives you to keep;", "Pity, so left to the coldness of your blood,", "Not to avail you, nor do the others good." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet I: Like an Advent'rous Seafarer", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Like an advent'rous seafarer am I,", "Who hath some long and dang'rous voyage been,", "And, call'd to tell of his discovery,", "How far he sail'd, what countries he had seen;", "Proceeding from the port whence he put forth,", "Shows by his compass how his course he steer'd,", "When East, when West, when South, and when by North,", "As how the Pole to every place was rear'd,", "What capes he doubled, of what Continent,", "The gulfs and straits that strangely he had past,", "Where most becalm'd, where with foul weather spent,", "And on what rocks in peril to be cast:", "Thus in my love, Time calls me to relate", "My tedious travels and oft-varying fate." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XV: Since to Obtain Thee", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet LIX: As Love and I", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write;", "Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,", "Boasting that she doth still direct the way,", "Or else Love were unable to endite.", "Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen", "And scorning Reason's maimed argument,", "Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent,", "Where she with Love conversing hath not been.", "Reason, reproached with this coy disdain,", "Despiteth Love, and laugheth at her folly;", "And Love, condemning Reason's reason wholly,", "Thought it in weight too light by many'a grain.", "Reason, put back, doth out of sight remove,", "And Love alone picks reason out of love." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXIX: Some, When in Rhyme", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Some, when in rhyme they of their loves do tell,", "With flames and lightnings their exordiums paint;", "Some call on Heav'n, some invocate on Hell,", "And Fates and Furies with their woes acquaint.", "Elysium is too high a seat for me;", "I will not come in Styx or Phlegethon;", "The thrice-three Muses but too wanton be;", "Like they that lust, I care not; I will none.", "Spiteful Erinnys frights me with her looks;", "My manhood dares not with foul Ate mell;", "I quake to look on Hecate's charming books;", "I still fear bugbears in Apollo's cell.", "I pass not for Minerva nor Astraea;", "Only I call on my divine Idea." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXVIII: To Such As Say", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To such as say thy love I overprize,", "And do not stick to term my praises folly,", "Against these folks, that think themselves so wise,", "I thus oppose my Reason's forces wholly,", "Though I give more than well affords my state,", "In which expense the most suppose me vain,", "Which yields them nothing at the easiest rate,", "Yet at this price returns me treble gain.", "They value not, unskillful how to use,", "And I give much, because I gain thereby;", "I that thus take, or they that thus refuse,", "Whether are these deceived then, or I?", "In everything I hold this maxim still:", "The circumstance doth make it good or ill." ], "linecount": "14" } ]