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Title: Of His Ladies Not Comming To London
Author: Michael Drayton [
More Titles by Drayton]
That ten-yeares-travelled Greek returned from Sea
Ne'er joyd so much to see his Ithaca,
As I should you, who are alone to me,
More then wide Greece could to that wanderer be.
The winter winds still Easterly do keep,
And with keen Frosts have chained up the deep,
The Sun's to us a niggard of his Rays,
But revelleth with our Antipodes;
And seldom to us when he shows his head,
Muffled in vapours, he straight hies to bed.
In those bleak mountains can you live where snow
Maketh the vales up to the hills to grow;
Whereas mens breathes do instantly congeal,
And attom'd mists turn instantly to hail;
Belike you think, from this more temperate cost,
My sighs may have the power to thawe the frost,
Which I from hence should swiftly send you thither,
Yet not so swift, as you come slowly hither.
How many a time, hath Phebe from her wane,
With Phoebus fires filled up her horns again;
She through her Orb, still on her course doth range,
But you keep yours still, nor for me will change.
The Sun that mounted the stern Lions back,
Shall with the Fishes shortly dive the Brack,
But still you keep your station, which confines
You, nor regard him travelling the signs.
Those ships which when you went, put out to Sea,
Both to our Greenland, and Virginia,
Are now returned, and Customed have their fraught,
Yet you arrive not, nor return me ought.
The Thames was not so frozen yet this year,
As is my bosom, with the chilly fear
Of your not comming, which on me doth light,
As on those Climes, where half the world is night.
Of every tedious hour you have made two,
All this long Winter here, by missing you:
Minutes are months, and when the hour is past,
A year is ended since the Clock struck last,
When your Remembrance puts me on the Rack,
And I should Swound to see an Almanack,
To read what silent weeks away are slid,
Since the dire Fates you from my sight have hid.
I hate him who the first Deviser was
Of this same foolish thing, the Hour-glass,
And of the Watch, whose dribbling sands and Wheel,
With their slow strokes, make me too much to feel
Your slackeness hither, O how I do ban,
Him that these Dials against walls began,
Whose Snaily motion of the moving hand,
(Although it go) yet seem to me to stand;
As though at Adam it had first set out
And had been stealing all this while about,
And when it back to the first point should come,
It shall be then just at the general Doom.
The Seas into themselves retract their flows.
The changing Wind from every quarter blows,
Declining Winter in the Spring doth call,
The Stars rise to us, as from us they fall;
Those Birds we see, that leave us in the Prime,
Again in Autumn re-salute our Clime.
Sure, either Nature you from kind hath made,
Or you delight else to be Retrograde.
But I perceive by your attractive powers,
Like an Enchantress you have charmed the bowers
Into short minutes, and have drawn them back,
So that of us at London, you do lack
Almost a year, the Spring is scarce begun
There where you live, and Autumn almost done.
With us more Eastward, surely you devise,
By your strong Magic, that the Sun shall rise
Where now it setts, and that in some few years
You'l alter quite the Motion of the Spheres.
Yes, and you mean, I shall complaine my love
To gravell'd Walkes, or to a stupid Grove,
Now your companions; and that you the while
(As you are cruel) will sit by and smile,
To make me write to these, while Passers by,
Sleightly look in your lovely face, where I
See Beauties heaven, whilst silly blockheads, they
Like laden Asses, plod upon their way,
And wonder not, as you should point a Clown
Up to the Guards, or Ariadnes Crown;
Of Constellations, and his dulnesse tell.
Hee'd thinke your words were certainly a Spell;
Or him some piece from Creet, or Marcus show,
In all his life which till that time ne'r saw
Painting: except in Alehouse or old Hall
Done by some Druzzler, of the Prodigall.
Nay do, stay still, whilst time away shall steal
Your youth, and beauty, and yourself conceal
From me I pray you, you have now inured
Me to your absence, and I haue endured
Your want this long, whilst I have starved bine
For your short Letters, as you held it sin
To write to me, that to appease my woe,
I reade ore those, you writ a year ago,
Which are to me, as though they had bin made,
Long time before the first Olympiad.
For thanks and courtesies sell your presence then
To tatling Women, and to things like men,
And be more foolish then the Indians are
For Bells, for Knives, for Glasses, and such ware,
That sell their Pearl and Gold, but here I stay,
So I would not haue you but come away.
[The end]
Michael Drayton's poem: Of His Ladies Not Comming To London
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