by John Donne
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This selection by Peter Washington first published in Everyman’s Library, 1995
Copyright © 1995 by Everyman’s Library
Seventh printing (US)
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Published in the United Kingdom by Everyman’s Library, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT. Distributed by Random House (UK) Ltd.
US website: www.randomhouse.com/everymans
eBook ISBN: 978-0-375-71265-4
ISBN 978-0-679-44467-1 (US)
978-1-85713-722-2 (UK)
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Donne, John, 1572–1631.
[Poems. Selections]
Poems / John Donne.
p. cm.—(Everyman’s library pocket poets)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-679-44467-1
I. Title. II. Series.
PR2246 1995 95-15330
821’.3—dc20 CIP
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
SONGS AND SONNETS
The Good Morrow
Song (Goe, and catche a falling starre)
The Sunne Rising
The Flea
The Canonization
The triple Foole
Womans constancy
Song (Sweetest love, I do not goe)
Aire and Angels
The Anniversarie
Twicknam Garden
The Dreame
Loves Alchymie
Loves growth
The Indifferent
Loves Usury
Loves Deitie
The Message
A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day
Witchcraft by a picture
The Baite
A Valediction forbidding mourning
A Valediction of weeping
The Extasie
The Will
The Apparition
A Lecture upon the Shadow
The Relique
The Legacie
The Dissolution
The Paradox
The Expiration
ELEGIES
Elegie XVI On his Mistris
Elegie XIX To his Mistress Going to Bed
Elegie XVII
SATIRES
Satyre I
Satyre II
Satyre III
Satyre IV
Satyre V
LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF BEDFORD
Reason is our Soules left hand
You have refin’d me
T’have written then
This twilight of two yeares
Honour is so sublime perfection
Though I be dead
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY
An Anatomy of the World
HOLY SONNETS
Thou hast made me
I am a little world
Annunciation
Nativitie
O might those sighes
This is my playes last scene
At the round earths imagin’d corners
Why are wee by all creatures waited on?
What if this present were the worlds last night?
Batter my heart, three-person’d God
Since she whom I lov’d hath payd her last debt
Show me deare Christ
Death be not proud
DIVINE POEMS
Resurrection, imperfect
Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward
A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany
Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse
A Hymne to God the Father
The Litanie (I–XIII)
From PARADOXES AND PROBLEMS
From IGNATIUS HIS CONCLAVE
From THE SERMONS, ESSAYS AND DEVOTIONS
Index of First Lines
SONGS AND SONNETS
THE GOOD-MORROW
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?
T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir’d, and got, t’was but a dreame of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking soules,
Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And makes one little roome, an every where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.
SONG
Goe, and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envies stinging,
And finde
What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.
If thou beest borne to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till age snow white haires on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn’st, wilt tell mee
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And sweare
No where
Lives a woman true, and faire.
If thou findst one, let mee know,
Such a Pilgrimage were sweet,
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
Though at next doore wee might meet,
Though shee were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet shee
Will bee
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
THE SUNNE RISING
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time.
Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou thinke?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,
Whether both the’India’s of spice and Myne
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.
She’is all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else
is.
Princes doe but play us, compar’d to this,
All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie;
Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.
THE FLEA
Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sinne, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two
And this, alas, is more then wee would doe.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where wee almost, yea more then maryed are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloystered in these living walls of Jet.
Though use make you apt to kill mee,
Let not to that, selfe murder added bee,
And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.
Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since
Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty bee,
Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and saist that thou
Find’st not thy selfe, nor mee the weaker now;
’Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;
Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee,
Will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee.
THE CANONIZATION
For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsie, or my gout,
My five gray haires, or ruin’d fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your minde with Arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honour, or his grace,
Or the King’s reall, or his stamped face
Contemplate, what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas, alas, who’s injur’d by my love?
What merchants ships have my sighs drown’d?
Who saies my teares have overflow’d his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veines fill
Adde one more to the plaguie Bill?
Soldiers finde warres, and Lawyers finde out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call us what you will, wee are made such by love;
Call her one, mee another flye,
We’are Tapers too, and at our owne cost die,
And wee in us finde the’Eagle and the dove,
The Phœnix ridle hath more wit
By us, we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutrall thing both sexes fit,
Wee dye and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
Wee can dye by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombes and hearse
Our legend bee, it will be fit for verse;
And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty roomes;
As well a well wrought urne becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombes,
And by these hymnes, all shall approve
Us Canoniz’d for Love.
And thus invoke us; You whom reverend love
Made one anothers hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage,
Who did the whole worlds soule contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize,
Countries, Townes, Courts: Beg from above
A patterne of our love.
THE TRIPLE FOOLE
I am two fooles, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining Poëtry;
But where’s that wiseman, that would not be I,
If she would not deny?
Then as th’earths inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my paines,
Through Rimes vexation, I should them allay,
Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For, he tames it, that fetters it in verse.
But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth Set and sing my paine,
And, by delighting many, frees againe
Griefe, which verse did restraine.
To Love, and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when’tis read,
Both are increased by such songs:
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;
Who are a little wise, the best fooles bee.
WOMANS CONSTANCY
Now thou hast lov’d me one whole day,
To morrow when thou leav’st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then Antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
Or, that oathes made in reverentiall feare
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forsweare?
Or, as true deaths, true maryages untie,
So lovers contracts, images of those,
Binde but till sleep, deaths image, them unloose?
Or, your owne end to Justifie,
For having purpos’d change, and falsehood; you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vaine lunatique, against these scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
Which I abstaine to doe,
For by to morrow, I may thinke so too.
SONG
Sweetest love, I do not goe,
For wearinesse of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for mee,
But since that I
Must dye at last, ’tis best,
To use my selfe in jest
Thus by fain’d deaths to dye;
Yesternight the Sunne went hence,
And yet is here to day,
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor halfe so short a way:
Then feare not mee,
But beleeve that I shall make
Speedier journeyes, since I take
More wings and spurres than hee.
O how feeble is mans power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot adde another houre,
Nor a lost houre recall!
But come bad chance,
And wee joyne to’it our strength,
And wee teach it art and length,
It selfe o’r us to’advance.
When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not winde,
But sigh’st my soule away,
When thou weep’st, unkindly kinde,
My lifes blood doth decay.
It cannot bee
That thou lov’st mee, as thou say’st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
Thou art the best of mee.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethinke me any ill,
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy feares fulfill,
But thinke that wee
Are but turn’d aside to sleepe;
They who one another keepe
Alive, ne’r parted bee.
AIRE AND ANGELS
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame,
Angells affect us oft, and worship’d bee,
Still when, to where thou wert, I came
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see,
But since, my soule, whose child love is,
Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe,
More subtile than the parent is,
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who
I did Love aske, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steddily to have gone,
With wares which would sinke admiration,
I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,
Ev’ry thy haire for love to worke upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an Angell, face, and wings
Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare,
So thy love may be my loves spheare;
Just such disparitie
As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie,
T’wixt womens love, and mens will ever bee.
THE ANNIVERSARIE
All Kings, and all their favorites,
All glory of honors, beauties, wits,
The Sun it selfe, which makes times, as they passe,
Is elder by a yeare, now, then it was
When thou and I first one another saw:
All other things, to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay;
This, no to morrow hath, nor yesterday,
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keepes his first, last, everlasting day.
Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,
If one might, death were no divorce,
Alas, as well as other Princes, wee,
(Who Prince enough in one another bee,)
Must leave at last in death, these eyes, and eares,
Oft fed with true oathes, and with sweet salt teares;
But soules where nothing dwells but love
