Farewell to Love

Farewell to Love by Michael Drayton is quite an interesting sonnet. It draws an interesting parallel between the death of love, and perhaps the death of a lover. Or at least so it seems. The speaker in the poem talks about not being able to stop the inevitability of love ending by using some morbid thoughts that link it to death. Yet being able to get over the feelings he/she is having is not impossible.

For instance about half way through the poem the speaker says "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;". These images, while somewhat beautiful are quite sad and morbid in some ways.

The entire poem's meaning does not seem to be sad or morbid in the slightest however, as it seems to be dealing more with the fact that if love is strong that it persists even after death, and that the feeling the speaker has toward whomever the poem is referencing can stay, even if the other has moved on, and that the speaker will get through it. This can be seen a few lines before the last quote where the speaker says "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." and the last line "From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

Over all this is a very interesting and meaningful poem about getting over a former love, and that all is not hopeless... yet it is presented in a somewhat depressing manner which makes it much more emotional than it would be otherwise.

`Brian Michael Dunar