Yea, I struggle with
these remembrances.
Thou didst nightly send me your attendant
When thy watery moon cast quenching beams.
Sealed temptation inside a parchment
And then sighed upon a midnight pillow.
I know when thy messenger unwinds thy scroll
It foretells that you bethink fantasies
Thy note discovers thy unchaste plan
Beckons forth to me: 'Attend apace, man!'
Upon my depart, I learnt that gossips
Mark how thou debased thy gentle portance,
Bethink you a player in housewifery.
In my head there is a kind of fighting
While I, traveller from my native north,
Hear of your revelry. So thou hast doffed
thy habit, with potations thou carous'd.
Surrounded by your weird sisters, arous'd
I mourn remembrances of you calling
Upon me at night, the mare spurring my
Mounting mind. I broke thy letter's wax to
Find thy night's command: 'Hie thee presently.'
I know when thy messenger unwinds his scroll
Thou stands but bid me, a sweet fruit tree
Yea, wot I the purpose of your letter,
That I might leap to taste thy medlar.
Once apart we chide: Jealous in honor,
sudden and quick in quarrel. Thou heap guilt
like coal upon me and burn my conscience
but you are the one who is trespa**ing
While I have been wandering o'er the map
Your course has earn'd your desired rewards
Gallop in glistering coach, sail the flote
Gambol with unknown nymphs on whom you dote.
Thy post arrived announcing your intents
At night, a hidden message not so hid
Indeed, I came to expect thy letters
I read by the candlelight then dressed. When
Thy messenger unwinds thy scroll, wot I
Thou watch the waves, a sailor's lonely wife,
Who awaits her seaman with whom she dies
How clear you make your aim of sweet demise.
That mocking green-eyed monster feeds on my
visions of the bare nymph making the beast
with two backs before packing compounds strange.
Pa**ing along tricks thou learnt at my lap
Bethought you Juno for power you do
Not want. Or are you Venus? Tangled in
Ardour. Ope your house, let others come in
Then 'scape without issue along the road
Calling on lords and giving them nothing.
Your heart I owed and knew all thy intents
Til thou merely transform'd to my surprise
Turning galliards at masques, thou in disguise.
Through thy post thou once furnaced pa**ion
And thy letters arrived singed and steaming,
Pulled from the flame and forged on my anvil.
Thou crave my glaive and still sent suit to joust.
So I brandish'd my scabbard when you bade
me come hither for polishing and play.
When thy messenger alights apace and cries,
I shall foin my weapon between thy thighs.
[EXIT DRAKE]