Last Kiss

Last kiss.




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 with all my heart

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows

And, when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we not 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.



Michael Drayton

Poet 1563 - 1631