Aubade

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Technically a morning song, I offer this, a wonderful counterpoint to yesterday's (which none could read).

from Idea by Michael Drayton


LXI.

SINCE here'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 given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

Idea is a remarkable cycle of sonnets from a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Perhaps not so accomplished as Shakespeare's sonnets, or perhaps simply less well known, Drayton's sonnets run the gamut of possibilities. Drayton was also know for his "Ode To the Virginian Voyage" one of the first English celebrations of the Age of Discovery. (Camoens The Lusiads is one of the earliest such celebrations). This sonnet is a delightfully on-target exposition of the undying nature of love. Even when we want it to go away we cannot make it simply leave. We say love draws its last breath, and yet, and yet, if there were only a chance, a possibility. Drayton's sonnet captures that moment that so many of us have experienced. It is a poem that often dances in my head as God speaking to me. Too often I seem to reduce everything to its bare bones, leaving my supposed love and fidelity to God gasping on its deathbed. But God, ever desiring my undesirable company, always enacts those last two lines, fanning to life again the failing spark and providing a new way to see and to love Him.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on August 2, 2002 8:01 AM.

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