Poem of the week

Taken from 'The Rattle Bag', edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.

'Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part'

By 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.
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seem 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 mightest him yet recover.