MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631) SONNETS, TO IDEA INTRODUCTORY SONNET, FROM EDITION OF 1594 To the dear child of the Muses and his ever kind Maecenas, Master Anthony Cooke, Esquire VOUCHSAFE to grace these rude unpolished rhymes Which long, dear friend, have slept in sable night, And in all humours sportively I range; My active Muse is of the world's right strain, That cannot long one fashion entertain. SONNET 3 MANY there be excelling in this kind, tion swell. Let each commend as best shall like his mind Some Sidney, Constable, some Daniel. And, come abroad now in these glorious That thus their names familiarly I sing times, Can hardly brook the pureness of the light. Perhaps they better shall abide the touch, A fault too common in this latter time. FROM EDITION OF 1599 SONNET 2 To the Reader of His Poems INTO these loves who but for passion looks, No far-fetched sigh shall ever wound my Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring, My verse is the true image of my mind, Let none think them disparaged to be; king, And so may these be spoken of by me. But now at hand, then seeks invention far, Like me that lust, my honest merry Nor care for critic nor regard the times. SONNET 22 An evil spirit your beauty haunts me still, Which ceaseth not to tempt me unto ill, rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, Before my face it lays all my despairs, tears, And then in sighing to give up my breath. SONNET 43 WHILST thus my pen strives to eternize thee, Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face, And murther'st Virtue with thy coy disdain. And though in youth my youth untimely perish To keep thee from oblivion and the grave, Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish; Where I, entombed, my better part shall save. And though this earthly body fade and die, My name shall mount upon eternity. FROM EDITION OF 1602 SONNET 12 To Lunacy As other men, so I myself do muse And ever this in madmen you shall find, What they last thought on when the brain grew sick In most distraction keep that still 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. SONNET 27 I HEAR Some say, "This man is not in love. Who! Can he love? A likely thing!" they say. "Read but his verse, and it will easily prove." Oh judge not rashly, gentle sir, I pray. As one that fain his sorrows would beguile, And please yourself with this conceit the while. You shallow censures! sometime see you not In greatest perils some men pleasant be, Where fame by death is only to be got, They resolute? So stands the case with me. Where other men in depth of passion cry, I laugh at fortune, as in jest to die. SONNET 41 DEAR, why should you command me to my rest When now the night doth summon all to sleep? Methinks this time becometh lovers best; The quiet evening yet together brings, That every creature to his kind dost call, Well could I wish it would be ever day, If when night comes you bid me go away. FROM EDITION of 1619 SONNET I LIKE an adventurous sea-farer am I, Who hath some long and dangerous voyage been; And called to tell of his discovery, How far he sailed, what countries he had seen, Proceeding from the port whence he put forth Shows by his compass how his course he steered, When east, when west, when south, and when by north, As how the pole to every place was reared, What capes he doubled, of what continent, The gulfs and straits that strangely he had passed, Where most becalmed, wherewith 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. SONNET 6 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? Where I to thee eternity shall give When nothing else remaineth of these days, And queens hereafter shall be glad to live Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise. Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes Shall be so much delighted with thy story That they shall grieve they lived not in these times To have seen thee, their sex's only glory. So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song. SONNET 61 SINCE there's no help, come, let us kiss and part. Nay, I have done; you get no more of me. 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. TO HIS COY LOVE A CANZONET I PRAY thee leave, love me no more, Call home the heart you gave me. I but in vain that saint adore That can, but will not, save me. These poor half-kisses kill me quite; Was ever man thus served, Amidst an ocean of delight, For pleasure to be starved? |