by John Donne
(All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove
This, or a love increased there above,
When bodies to their graves, soules from their graves remove.
And then wee shall be throughly blest,
But wee no more, then all the rest.
Here upon earth, we’are Kings, and none but wee
Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects bee;
Who is so safe as wee? where none can doe
Treason to us, except one of us two.
True and false feares let us refraine,
Let us love nobly, and live, and adde againe
Yeares and yeares unto yeares, till we attaine
To write threescore, this is the second of our raigne.
TWICKNAM GARDEN
Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares,
Hither I come to seeke the spring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine eares,
Receive such balmes, as else cure every thing,
But O, selfe traytor, I do bring
The spider love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert Manna to gall,
And that this place may thoroughly be thought
True Paradise, I have the serpent brought.
’Twere wholsomer for mee, that winter did
Benight the glory of this place,
And that a grave frost did forbid
These trees to laugh and mocke mee to my face;
But that I may not this disgrace
Indure, nor yet leave loving, Love let mee
Some senslesse peece of this place bee;
Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,
Or a stone fountaine weeping out my yeare.
Hither with christall vyals, lovers come,
And take my teares, which are loves wine,
And try your mistresse Teares at home,
For all are false, that tast not just like mine;
Alas, hearts do not in eyes shine,
Nor can you more judge womans thoughts by teares,
Then by her shadow, what she weares.
O perverse sexe, where none is true but shee,
Who’s therefore true, because her truth kills mee.
THE DREAME
Deare love, for nothing lesse then thee
Would I have broke this happy dreame,
It was a theame
For reason, much too strong for phantasie,
Therefore thou wakd’st me wisely; yet
My Dreame thou brok’st not, but continued’st it,
Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,
Not to dreame all my dreame, let’s act the rest.
As lightning, or a Tapers light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak’d mee;
Yet I thought thee
(For thou lovest truth) an Angell, at first sight,
But when I saw thou sawest my heart,
And knew’st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art,
When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when
Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,
I must confesse, it could not chuse but bee
Prophane, to thinke thee any thing but thee.
Comming and staying show’d thee, thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now,
Thou art not thou.
That love is weake, where feare’s as strong as hee;
’Tis not all spirit, pure, and brave,
If mixture it of Feare, Shame, Honor, have;
Perchance as torches which must ready bee,
Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with mee,
Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come; Then I
Will dreame that hope againe, but else would die.
LOVES ALCHYMIE
Some that have deeper digg’d loves Myne then I,
Say, where his centrique happinesse doth lie:
I have lov’d, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not finde that hidden mysterie;
Oh, ’tis imposture all:
And as no chymique yet th’Elixar got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinall,
So, lovers dreame a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summers night.
Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day,
Shall we, for this vaine Bubles shadow pay?
Ends love in this, that my man,
Can be as happy’as I can; If he can
Endure the short scorne of a Bridegroomes play?
That loving wretch that sweares,
’Tis not the bodies marry, but the mindes,
Which he in her Angelique findes,
Would sweare as justly, that he heares,
In that dayes rude hoarse minstralsey, the spheares.
Hope not for minde in women; at their best,
Sweetnesse, and wit they’are, but, Mummy, possest.
LOVES GROWTH
I scarce beleeve my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grasse;
Me thinkes I lyed all winter, when I swore,
My love was infinite, if spring make’it more.
But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not onely bee no quintessence,
But mixt of all stuffes, paining soule, or sense,
And of the Sunne his working vigour borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use
To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the Spring is growne;
As, in the firmament,
Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg’d, but showne,
Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,
From loves awakened root do bud out now.
If, as in water stir’d more circles bee
Produc’d by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheares, but one heaven make,
For, they are all concentrique unto thee,
And though each spring doe adde to love new heate,
As princes doe in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the springs encrease.
THE INDIFFERENT
I can love both faire and browne,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betraies,
Her who loves lonenesse best, and her who maskes and plaies,
Her whom the country form’d, and whom the town,
Her who beleeves, and her who tries,
Her who still weepes with spungie eyes,
And her who is dry corke, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.
Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would finde out others?
Or doth a feare, that men are true, torment you?
Oh we are not, be not you so,
Let mee, and doe you, twenty know.
Rob mee, but binde me not, and let me goe.
Must I, who came to travaile thorow you,
Grow your fixt subject, because you are true?
Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by Loves sweetest Part, Variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examin’d, and return’d ere long,<
br />
And said, alas, Some two or three
Poore Heretiques in love there bee,
Which thinke to stablish dangerous constancie.
But I have told them, since you will be true,
You shall be true to them, who’are false to you.
LOVES USURY
For every houre that thou wilt spare me now,
I will allow,
Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee,
When with my browne, my gray haires equall bee;
Till then, Love, let my body raigne, and let
Mee travell, sojourne, snatch, plot, have, forget,
Resume my last yeares relict: thinke that yet
We’had never met.
Let mee thinke any rivalls letter mine,
And at next nine
Keepe midnights promise; mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the Lady of that delay;
Onely let mee love none, no, not the sport
From country grasse, to comfitures of Court,
Or cities quelque choses, let report
My minde transport.
This bargaine’s good; if when I’am old, I bee
Inflam’d by thee,
If thine owne honour, or my shame, or paine,
Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gaine.
Doe thy will then, then subject and degree,
And fruit of love, Love I submit to thee,
Spare mee till then, I’ll beare it, though she bee
One that loves mee.
LOVES DEITIE
I long to talke with some old lovers ghost,
Who dyed before the god of Love was borne:
I cannot thinke that hee, who then lov’d most,
Sunke so low, as to love one which did scorne.
But since this god produc’d a destinie,
And that vice-nature, custome, lets it be;
I must love her, that loves not mee.
Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much:
Nor he, in his young godhead practis’d it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondencie
Only his subject was; It cannot bee
Love, till I love her, that loves mee.
But every moderne god will now extend
His vast prerogative, as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlewe of the God of Love.
Oh were wee wak’ned by this Tyrannie
To ungod this child againe, it could not bee
I should love her, who loves not mee.
Rebell and Atheist too, why murmure I,
As though I felt the worst that love could doe?
Love may make me leave loving, or might trie
A deeper plague, to make her love mee too,
Which since she loves before, I’am loth to see;
Falshood is worse than hate; and that must bee
If shee whom I love, should love mee.
THE MESSAGE
Send home my long strayd eyes to mee,
Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee,
Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,
Such forc’d fashions,
And false passions,
That they be
Made by thee
Fit for no good sight, keep them still.
Send home my harmlesse heart againe,
Which no unworthy thought could staine,
Which if it be taught by thine
To make jestings
Of protestings,
And breake both
Word and oath,
Keepe it, for then ’tis none of mine.
Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know, and see thy lyes,
And may laugh and joy, when thou
Art in anguish
And dost languish
For some one
That will none,
Or prove as false as thou art now.
A NOCTURNALL UPON S. LUCIES DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY
Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr’d, yet all these seeme to laugh,
Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchimie.
For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse
He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have,
I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaosses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
Were I a man, that I were one,
I needs must know, I should preferre,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love, all, all some properties invest,
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
At this time to the Goat is runne
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her eve, since this
Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.
WITCHCRAFT BY A PICTURE
I fixe mine eye on thine, and there
Pitty my picture burning in thine eye,
My picture drown’d in a transparent teare,
When I looke lower I espie,
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and mard, to kill,
How many wayes mightst thou performe thy will?
But now I have drunke thy sweet salt teares,
And though thou poure more I’ll depart;
My picture vanish’d, vanish feares,
That I can be endamag’d by that art;
Though thou retaine of mee
One picture more, yet that will bee,
Being in thine owne heart, from all malice free.
THE BAITE
Come live with mee, and bee my love,
And wee will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and christall brookes:
With silken lines, and silver hookes.
There will the river whispering runne
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the Sunne.
And there the’inamor’d fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channell hath,
Will amorously to thee swimme,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,
By
Sunne, or Moone, thou darknest both,
And if my selfe have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poore fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowie net:
Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies
Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.
For thee, thou needst no such deceit,
For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait,
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas, is wiser farre than I.
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
As virtuous men passe mildly away,
And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no.
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T’were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th’earth brings harmes and feares,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refin’d,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, hands to misse.
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the’other doe.
