The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Drayton, Michael. "Since There's No Help." The Complete Works of Michael Drayton (Sagwan Press, 2015).

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

Michael Drayton was a popular poet in Elizabethan England. While his career is often compared to his contemporaries like Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, and Samuel Daniel, Drayton was a prolific writer who published multiple works during his lifetime. His first book, The Harmony of the Church, was published in 1590. Shortly after, Drayton published Idea in 1593, which consisted of a series of pastoral poems. Following Idea, Drayton wrote Idea's Mirror, a sonnet sequence originally composed of 51 sonnets but later expanded by Drayton over the next two decades. "Since There's No Help" appeared in one of these expanded versions of Idea's Mirror as sonnet number 61. Drayton went on to produce his greatest work, Poly-Olbion, in 1613, but his popularity waned during the reign of King James I.

Idea's Mirror is a sonnet sequence that, like many other sonnet sequences of the early modern period, features a speaker lamenting an unrequited love. In "Since There's No Help," this speaker resigns himself to never receiving the affection he desires from his beloved. The poem is often read, however, outside of its original context within the sequence. In these interpretations, the poem depicts two lovers whose love has apparently waned over time, now deemed irrecoverable by the speaker. At the end of the poem, however, the speaker once again returns to hope, imagining that this love can be salvaged and his affections requited at last.