Poem A Day

Classic poem

Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil

by Michael Drayton

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.

naturelovesolitudegriefidentitynight
Public domain/Source

About this poem

First line
My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat;
Poet
Michael Drayton
Themes
nature, love, solitude, grief

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