"…an ancient folio of Drayton's works..." (February 1, 1814)

Michael Drayton’s Idea provides many of the epigraphs in An Independent Heart. I discovered this wonderful sequence of sonnets thanks to Georgette Heyer, who quotes Sonnet LXI in Venetia, and London’s Poems on the Underground programme. Heyer doesn’t identify her source, and back around 1990 it would have been difficult for a clueless teenager to find out where the quotation came from if it hadn’t been for this inspiring initiative to feature classic and contemporary poetry in Tube train carriages.

 

If you're similarly inspired by this post, you will find that I've shamelessly bent Drayton to fit my purpose. While lots of hearts come up in his sonnets, there's never an independent heart among them! 

The entire and correct text is as follows:

VII.

LOVE in a humour played the prodigal
And bade my Senses to a solemn feast ;
Yet, more to grace the company withal,
Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.
No other drink would serve this glutton's turn
But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,
Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,
Quaffing carouses in this costly wine ;
Where, in his cups o'ercome with foul excess,
Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian's part,
And at the banquet in his drunkenness
Slew his dear friend, my Kind and Truest Heart.
    A gentle warning, friends, thus may you see
    What 'tis to keep a drunkard company.