Blackbird screwdriver

A poem by Michael Drayton (d. 1631)

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 for ever, cancel all our vows,
And, when we meet at any time again,
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 thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life, thou might'st him yet recover.

This reminds me of a favorite Yeats poem and of my own experiences. It's awfully sad. There's a useless, impotent heroism here. There's a willingness to give up the last shred of pride. I love "Faith is kneeling by his bed of death / And Innocence is closing up his eyes." Faith and Innocence are so active, so consciously suicidal. Furthermore, I always love what my father called a "Ciceronian sentence," otherwise known as a big finish. I think it's particularly appropriate in a poem about the torments of unrequited love. It is an unsettling, confusing gesture; instead of sealing up the poem, the last lines shoot it off in a new and much more powerful direction. Isn't this like the last moments of a great love affair? Don't we try to say the last thing, the fundamental thing, and don't we always end up creating a whole other beast in the process? Finally, the poem contains the basic tragedy of love and life - that we cannot turn back the clock, or even stop it where it is. It is a law of reality (though not of fantasy) that the bloom will fade. I have learned better kinds of love since, but the first blush of young love has an unrivaled sweetness. Alas, the tree bearing that fruit dies when you pick it.

I was watching Smiles of a Summer Night again today, for the first time in a few years. There are three smiles, the first for the young lovers, the second for the clowns, the third for the sleepless and lonely. When they describe the third, it is with such joy, such contentment. What a ravishing gift life gives the sleepless - a dawn.