The Poetry Corner

Sonet 21

By Michael Drayton

You cannot loue my pretty hart, and why? There was a time, you told me that you would, But now againe you will the same deny, If it might please you, would to God you could; What will you hate? nay, that you will not neither, Nor loue, nor hate, how then? what will you do, What will you keepe a meane then betwixt eyther? Or will you loue me, and yet hate me to? Yet serues not this, what next, what other shift? You will, and will not, what a coyle is heere, I see your craft, now I perceaue your drift, And all this while, I was mistaken there. Your loue and hate is this, I now doe proue you, You loue in hate, by hate to make me loue you.