by John Donne
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas, we scarse live long enough to trie
Whether a new made clocke runne right, or lie.
Old Grandsires talke of yesterday with sorrow,
And for our children we reserve to morrow.
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torne house, or field, to have three lives.
And as in lasting, so in length is man
Contracted to an inch, who was a span.
For had a man at first, in Forrests stray’d,
Or shipwrack’d in the Sea, one would have laid
A wager that an Elephant or Whale
That met him, would not hastily assaile
A thing so equall to him: now alas,
The Fayries, and the Pigmies well may passe
As credible; mankind decayes so soone,
We’re scarse our Fathers shadowes cast at noone.
Onely death addes t’our length: nor are we growne
In stature to be men, till we are none.
But this were light, did our lesse volume hold
All the old Text; or had we chang’d to gold
Their silver; or dispos’d into lesse glas,
Spirits of vertue, which then scattred was.
But ’tis not so: w’are not retir’d, but dampt;
And as our bodies, so our mindes are cramp’t:
’Tis shrinking, not close-weaving, that hath thus,
In minde and body both bedwarfed us.
We seeme ambitious, Gods whole worke t’undoe;
Of nothing he made us, and we strive too,
To bring our selves to nothing backe; and we
Do what we can, to do’t so soone as hee.
With new diseases on our selves we warre,
And with new phisicke, a worse Engin farre.
Thus man, this worlds Vice-Emperor, in whom
All faculties, all graces are at home;
And if in other Creatures they appeare,
They’re but mans ministers, and Legats there,
To worke on their rebellions, and reduce
Them to Civility, and to mans use.
This man, whom God did wooe, and loth t’attend
Till man came up, did downe to man descend,
This man, so great, that all that is, is his,
Oh what a trifle, and poore thing he is!
If man were any thing, he’s nothing now:
Helpe, or at least some time to wast, allow
T’his other wants, yet when he did depart
With her, whom we lament, he lost his hart.
She, of whom th’Auncients seem’d to prophesie,
When they call’d vertues by the name of shee;
She in whom vertue was so much refin’d,
That for Allay unto so pure a minde
Shee tooke the weaker Sex, she that could drive
The poysonous tincture, and the stayne of Eve,
Out of her thoughts, and deeds; and purifie
All, by a true religious Alchimy;
Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowest this,
Thou knowest how poore a trifling thing man is.
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomee,
The heart being perish’d, no part can be free.
And that except thou feed (not banquet) on
The supernaturall food, Religion,
Thy better Grouth growes withered, and scant;
Be more then man, or thou’rt lesse then an Ant.
Then, as mankinde, so is the worlds whole frame
Quite out of joynt, almost created lame:
For, before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption entred, and deprav’d the best:
It seis’d the Angels, and then first of all
The world did in her Cradle take a fall,
And turn’d her braines, and tooke a generall maime
Wronging each joynt of th’universall frame.
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and than
Both beasts and plants, curst in the curse of man.
So did the world from the first houre decay,
The evening was beginning of the day,
And now the Springs and Sommers which we see,
Like sonnes of women after fifty bee.
And new Philosophy cals all in doubt,
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sun is lost, and th’earth, and no mans wit
Can well direct him, where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse, that this world’s spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seeke so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.
’Tis all in pieces, all cohærence gone;
All just supply, and all Relation:
Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinkes he hath got
To be a Phœnix, and that there can bee
None of that kinde, of which he is, but hee.
This is the worlds condition now, and now
She that should all parts to reunion bow,
She that had all Magnetique force alone,
To draw, and fasten sundred parts in one;
She whom wise nature had invented then
When she observ’d that every sort of men
Did in their voyage in this worlds Sea stray,
And needed a new compasse for their way;
Shee that was best, and first originall
Of all faire copies; and the generall
Steward to Fate; shee whose rich eyes, and brest,
Guilt the West Indies, and perfum’d the East;
Whose having breath’d in this world, did bestow
Spice on those Isles, and bad them still smell so,
And that rich Indie which doth gold interre,
Is but as single money, coyn’d from her:
She to whom this world must it selfe refer,
As Suburbs, or the Microcosme of her,
Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowst this,
Thou knowst how lame a cripple this world is.
And learnst thus much by our Anatomy,
That this worlds generall sickenesse doth not lie
In any humour, or one certaine part;
But, as thou sawest it rotten at the hart,
Thou seest a Hectique fever hath got hold
Of the whole substance, not to be contrould,
And that thou hast but one way, not t’admit
The worlds infection, to be none of it.
For the worlds subtilst immateriall parts
Feele this consuming wound, and ages darts.
For the worlds beauty is decayd, or gone,
Beauty, that’s colour, and proportion.
We thinke the heavens enjoy their Spherical
Their round proportion embracing all.
But yet their various and perplexed course,
Observ’d in divers ages doth enforce
Men to finde out so many Eccentrique parts,
Such divers downe-right lines, such overthwarts,
As disproportion that pure forme. It teares
The Firmament in eight and fortie sheeres,
And in those constellations there arise
New starres, and old do vanish from our eyes:
As though heav’n suffred earth-quakes, peace or war,
When new Townes rise, and olde demolish’d are.
They have empayld within a Zodiake
The free-borne Sunne, and keepe twelve signes awake
To watch his steps; the Goat and Crabbe controule,
And fright him backe, who els to eyther Pole,
(Did not these Tropiques fetter him) might runne:
For his course is not round; nor can the Sunne
Perfit a Circle, or maintaine his way
One inche direct; but where he
rose to day
He comes no more, but with a cousening line,
Steales by that point, and so is Serpentine:
And seeming weary with his reeling thus,
He meanes to sleepe, being now falne nearer us.
So, of the stares which boast that they do runne
In Circle still, none ends where he begunne.
All their proportion’s lame, it sinks, it swels.
For of Meridians, and Parallels,
Man hath weav’d out a net, and this net throwne
Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.
Loth to goe up the hill, or labor thus
To goe to heaven, we make heaven come to us.
We spur, we raine the stars, and in their race
They’re diversly content t’obey our pace.
But keepes the earth her round proportion still?
Doth not a Tenarif, or higher Hill
Rise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinke
The floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sink?
Seas are so deepe, that Whales being strooke to day,
Perchance to morrow, scarse at middle way
Of their wish’d journeys end, the bottom, dye.
And men, to sound depths, so much line untie,
As one might justly thinke, that there would rise
At end thereof, one of th’Antipodies:
If under all, a Vault infernall be,
(Which sure is spacious, except that we
Invent another torment, that there must
Millions into a strait hote roome be thrust)
Then solidnes, and roundnes have no place.
Are these but warts, and pock-holes in the face
Of th’earth? Thinke so: But yet confesse, in this
The worlds proportion disfigured is,
That those two legges whereon it doth relie,
Reward and punishment are bent awrie.
And, Oh, it can no more be questioned,
That beauties best, proportion, is dead,
Since even griefe it selfe, which now alone
Is left us, is without proportion.
Shee by whose lines proportion should bee
Examin’d, measure of all Symmetree,
Whom had that Ancient seen, who thought soules made
Of Harmony, he would at next have said
That Harmony was shee, and thence infer,
That soules were but Resultances from her,
And did from her into our bodies go,
As to our eyes, the formes from objects flow:
Shee, who if those great Doctors truely said
That th’Arke to mans proportions was made,
Had beene a type for that, as that might be
A type of her in this, that contrary
Both Elements, and Passions liv’d at peace
In her, who caus’d all Civill warre to cease.
Shee, after whom, what forme soe’re we see,
Is discord, and rude incongruitee,
Shee, shee is dead; she’s dead; when thou knowst this,
Thou knowst how ugly a monster this world is:
And learnst thus much by our Anatomee,
That here is nothing to enamor thee:
And that, not onely faults in inward parts,
Corruptions in our braines, or in our harts,
Poysoning the fountaines, whence our actions spring,
Endanger us: but that if every thing
Be not done fitly’and in proportion,
To satisfie wise, and good lookers on,
(Since most men be such as most thinke they bee)
They’re lothsome too, by this Deformitee.
For good, and well, must in our actions meete:
Wicked is not much worse then indiscreet.
But beauties other second Element,
Colour, and lustre now, is as neere spent.
And had the world his just proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.
As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well,
As gold fals sicke being stung with Mercury,
All the worlds parts of such complexion bee.
When nature was most busie, the first weeke,
Swadling the new-borne earth, God seemd to like,
That she should sport herselfe sometimes, and play,
To mingle and vary colours every day.
And then, as though she could not make inow,
Himselfe his various Rainbow did allow.
Sight is the noblest sense of any one,
Yet sight hath onely color to feed on,
And color is decayd: summers robe growes
Duskie, and like an oft dyed garment showes.
Our blushing redde, which us’d in cheekes to spred,
Is inward sunke, and onely our soules are redde.
Perchance the world might have recovered,
If she whom we lament had not beene dead:
But shee, in whom all white, and redde, and blue
(Beauties ingredients) voluntary grew,
As in an unvext Paradise; from whom
Did all things verdure, and their lustre come,
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all Diaphanous,
(For Ayre, and Fire but thicke grosse bodies were,
And liveliest stones but drowsie, and pale to her,)
Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowst this,
Thou knowst how wan a Ghost this our world is:
And learnst thus much by our Anatomee,
That it should more affright, then pleasure thee.
And that, since all faire colour then did sinke,
Tis now but wicked vanity to thinke,
To color vitious deeds with good pretence,
Or with bought colors to illude mens sense.
Nor in ought more this worlds decay appeares,
Then that her influence the heav’n forbeares,
Or that the Elements doe not feele this,
The father, or the mother barren is.
The clouds conceive not raine, or doe not powre
In the due birth-time, downe the balmy showre.
Th’Ayre doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth.
Spring-times were common cradles, but are toombes;
And false-conceptions fill the general wombs.
Th’Ayre showes such Meteors, as none can see,
Not onely what they meane, but what they bee.
Earth such new wormes, as would have troubled much,
Th’Egyptian Mages to have made more such.
What Artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heaven hither, or constellate any thing,
So as the influence of those starres may bee
Imprisond in an Herbe, or Charme, or Tree,
And doe by touch, all which those starres could do?
The art is lost, and correspondence too.
For heaven gives little, and the earth takes lesse,
And man least knowes their trade, and purposes.
If this commerce twixt heaven and earth were not
Embarr’d, and all this trafique quite forgot,
Shee, for whose losse we have lamented thus,
Would worke more fully’and pow’rfully on us.
Since herbes, and roots, by dying, lose not all,
But they, yea Ashes too, are medicinall,
Death could not quench her vertue so, but that
It would be (if not follow’d) wondred at:
And all the world would be one dying Swan,
To sing her funerall prayse, and vanish than.
But as some Serpents poyson hurteth not,
Except it be from the live Serpent shot,
So doth her vertue need her here, to fit
That unto us; she working more then it.
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But she, in whom, to such maturity,
Vertue was growne, past growth, that it must die,
She from whose influence all Impressions came,
But, by Receivers impotencies, lame,
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet guilded every state,
So that some Princes have some temperance;
Some Counsaylors some purpose to advance
The common profite; and some people have
Some stay, no more then Kings should give, to crave;
Some women have some taciturnity;
Some Nunneries, some graines of chastity.
She that did thus much, and much more could doe,
But that our age was Iron, and rusty too,
Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowst this,
Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is.
And learnst thus much by our Anatomy,
That ’tis in vaine to dew, or mollifie
It with thy Teares, or Sweat, or Bloud: no thing
Is worth our travaile, griefe, or perishing,
But those rich joyes, which did possesse her hart,
Of which shee’s now partaker, and a part.
But as in cutting up a man that’s dead,
The body will not last out to have read
On every part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts, that are of most effect;
So the worlds carcasse would not last, if I
Were punctuall in this Anatomy.
Nor smels it well to hearers, if one tell
Them their disease, who faine would think they’re wel.
Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,
Of whom is meant what ever hath beene said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines course lines, and makes prose song,
Accept this tribute, and his first yeares rent,
Who till his darke short tapers end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widow’d earth,
Will yearely celebrate thy second birth,
That is, thy death. For though the soule of man
Be got when man is made, ’tis borne but than
When man doth die. Our body’s as the wombe,
And as a mid-wife death directs it home.
And you her creatures, whom she workes upon
And have your last, and best concoction
From her example, and her vertue, if you
In reverence to her, doe thinke it due,
That no one should her prayses thus reherse,
As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse,
Vouchsafe to call to minde, that God did make
A last, and lasting peece, a song. He spake
To Moses to deliver unto all,
That song: because hee knew they would let fall
The Law, the Prophets, and the History,
