Michael Drayton. Idea. Sonnet XLI.

FROM

I d e a.

by Michael Drayton

XLI.

Love's Lunacy

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 torments and infernal terror ?
What should I say ? What yet remains to do ?
My brain is dry with weeping all too long,
My sighs be spent in uttering of my woe,
And I want words wherewith to tell my wrong ;
But, still distracted in Love's lunacy,
And, bedlam-like, thus raging in my grief,
Now rail upon her hair, then on her eye,
Now call her Goddess, then I call her thief,
Now I deny her, then I do confess her,
Now do I curse her, then again I bless her.

Source:
Drayton, Michael. Idea.
Daniel's Delia and Drayton's Idea. Arundell Esdaile, Ed.
London: Chatto and Windus, 1908. 108.

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