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Sonnets: Idea XLVI

By Michael Drayton

Topics: classic

Plain-pathed experience, the unlearnd's guide,     Her simple followers evidently shows     Sometimes what schoolmen scarcely can decide,     Nor yet wise reason absolutely knows;         In making trial of a murder wrought,     If the vile actors of the heinous deed     Near the dead body happily be brought,     Oft 't hath been proved the breathless corse will bleed.         She coming near, that my poor heart hath slain,     Long since departed, to the world no more,     The ancient wounds no longer can contain,     But fall to bleeding as they did before.         But what of this? Should she to death be led,         It furthers justice but helps not the dead.

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Michael Drayton

About Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton (1563–1631) was an English poet whose "Poly-Olbion" (1612–1622) is a vast topographical poem describing the landscape and legends of England and Wales. His sonnet "Since there's no help" is among the finest of the Elizabethan era.

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