Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Idea, Fidesa and Chloris

“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.- Sonnet LXI””

— Michael Drayton

“Since there is no help let us kiss and part.- Sonnet LXI””

— Michael Drayton

“I have, I want, despair, and yet desire,Burned in a sea of ice, and drowned amidst a fire."- Sonnet LXII””

— Michael Drayton

“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 tormented and infernal terror?What should I say? what yet remains to do?My brain is dry with weeping all too long;My signs be spent in utt'ring of my woe,And I want words wherewith to tell my wrong.””

— Michael Drayton

“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 might his labour satisfy.””

— Michael Drayton