"Since there's no help" by Michael Drayton

“Since there’s no help” is a poem that deals with a lot of emotions, with Love as its main focal point. What I gather is going on in this poem, is that the speaker is in a failing relationship, with no hope of a recovery. Since he knows what is eventually going to happen, he realizes that it would just be best to go ahead and end it for good. He wants to completely cut all ties with his lover and get to a point where, if the two meet again, they cannot tell that the other ever loved them at all. He says that he is glad that he can so cleanly cut all ties with this person, because being with them, yet knowing it’s going nowhere is a lot more painful than just ending it completely. One thing I really liked about this poem was the very well-formed metaphor in the last half, depicting Love as a dying person: “When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies/When faith is kneeling by his bed of death.” I also like how Drayton uses other emotional terms, such as passion, innocence, and faith to describe this “death” of Love. I thought Drayton makes a pretty clever statement when he places the blame on Innocence, as the sort-of last straw that causes Love to perish: “And innocence is closing up his eyes.” This poem has a really solid ending as well that brings the reader to closure. He’s saying here…“Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over/From death to life thou mightst him yet recover”…that if he can succeed in going through with this completely and really cut all ties with this former flame, then once he gets past the hurt and heartache, he will finally be able to love again someday.