Let Us Kiss and Part
Michael Drayton’s lady friend breaks up with him, and really it’s a relief, absolutely the best thing to do. Unless...
1619
King James I 1603-1625
Michael Drayton’s lady friend breaks up with him, and really it’s a relief, absolutely the best thing to do. Unless...
1619
King James I 1603-1625
Michael Drayton was an English poet of William Shakespeare’s generation, remembered today for his poems on English history and geography, and his clever imitations of Horace and Ovid. In 1593, he began publishing Idea: The Shepherd’s Garland in which he recorded the ups and downs of his attachment to a lady from Warwickshire. The sonnet below appeared in the 1619 edition.
original spelling
SINCE ther’s no helpe 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 my selfe can free.
Shake hands for ever; Cancell all our Vowes;
And when we meet at any time againe,
Be it not seen in either of our Browes
That we one jot of former Love reteyne.
Now at the last gaspe of Loves latest Breath
When, his Pulse fayling, Passion speechlesse 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.
original spelling
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.