Michael Drayton: Verses about Heart

My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
Who should I think the murther should commit,
Since but yourself there was no creature by,
But only I, guiltless of murth'ring it?
It slew itself; the verdict on the view
Doth quit the dead, and me not accessary.
Well, well, I fear it will be prov'd by you,
The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
But O, see, see, we need inquire no further:
Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murther;
Your cheeks yet pale, since first he gave the wound.
By this I see, however things be past,
Yet Heaven will still have murther out at last.

My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat;
My words the hammers fashioning my desire;
My breast the forge including all the heat;
Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;
My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth,
Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning;
Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth,
In grievous passions my woes still bemoaning;
My eyes with tears against the fire striving,
Whose scorching gleed my heart to cinders turneth,
But with these drops the flame again reviving,
Still more and more it to my torment turneth.
With Sisyphus thus do I roll the stone,
And turn the wheel with damned Ixion.