“The Parting”

“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,

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 you would, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might’st him yet recover.”

Michael Drayton.

Islander.