|
|
|
|
Odes (1619)
TO HIS VALENTINE
MUSE bid the morn awake,
Sad winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a make;1
This day's Saint Valentine's;
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see,
What beauty it shall be
That fortune us assigns.
But lo, in happy hour,
The place wherein she lies,
In yonder climbing tow'r,
Gilt by the glitt'ring rise;
O Jove! that in a show'r,
As once that thund'rer did,
When he in drops lay hid,
That I could her surprise!
Her canopy I'll draw,
With spangled plumes bedight,
No mortal ever saw
So ravishing a sight;
That it the gods might awe,
And powerfully transpierce
The globy universe,
Out-shooting ev'ry light.
My lips I'll softly lay
Upon her heavenly cheek,
Dyed like the dawning day,
As polish'd ivory sleek:
And in her ear I'll say:
O, thou bright morning star,
Tis I that come so far,
My Valentine to seek.
Each little bird, this tide,
Doth choose her loved pheer,2
Which constantly abide
In wedlock all the year,
As nature is their guide:
So may we two be true
This year nor change for new,
As turtles3 coupled were.
The sparrow, swan, the dove,
Tho' Venus' birds they be,
Yet are they not for love
So absolute as we:
For reason us doth move;
They but by billing4 woo:
Then try what we can do,
To whom each sense is free.
Which we have more than they,
By livelier organs sway'd,
Our appetite each way
More by our sense obey'd:
Our passions to display
This season us doth fit;
Then let us follow it,
As nature us doth lead.
One kiss in two let's break,
Confounded with the touch;
But half words let us speak,
Our lips employ'd so much,
Until we both grow weak;
With sweetness of thy breath,
O smother me to death;
Long let our joys be such.
Let's laugh at them that choose
Their Valentines by lot;
To wear their names that use,
Whom idly they have got:
Such poor choice we refuse;
Saint Valentine befriend,
We thus this morn may spend,
Else, Muse, awake her not.
|
|
[AJ Notes:
1. make, "mate".
2. pheer, fere, spouse.
3. turtles, turtledoves.
4. billing, kissing (of doves).]
Source:
Beeching, H. C., ed. A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel & Michael Drayton.
London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1899. 92-94.
 |
to Works of Michael Drayton |
Site copyright ©1996-2022 Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen on September 18, 2022.
|
|
The Tudors
King Henry VII
Elizabeth of York
King Henry VIII
Queen Catherine of Aragon
Queen Anne Boleyn
Queen Jane Seymour
Queen Anne of Cleves
Queen Catherine Howard
Queen Katherine Parr
King Edward VI
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Renaissance English Writers
Bishop John Fisher
William Tyndale
Sir Thomas More
John Heywood
Thomas Sackville
John Bale
Nicholas Udall
John Skelton
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
Hugh Latimer
Thomas Cranmer
Roger Ascham
Sir Thomas Hoby
John Foxe
George Gascoigne
John Lyly
Thomas Nashe
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Richard Hooker
Robert Southwell
Robert Greene
George Peele
Thomas Kyd
Edward de Vere
Christopher Marlowe
Anthony Munday
Sir Walter Ralegh
Thomas Hariot
Thomas Campion
Mary Sidney Herbert
Sir John Davies
Samuel Daniel
Michael Drayton
Fulke Greville
Emilia Lanyer
William Shakespeare
Persons of Interest
Visit Encyclopedia
Historical Events
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
The Babington Plot, 1586
The Spanish Armada, 1588
Elizabethan Theatre
See section
English Renaissance Drama
Images of London:
London in the time of Henry VII. MS. Roy. 16 F. ii.
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's Panoramic View of London, 1616. COLOR
|
|
Michael Drayton
