by John Donne
And did reveal pure love’s high mystery,
And had thy heart delivered by thy hand.
And in exchange I gave thee such a heart
As had it been example unto thine,
None could have challenged the smallest part
Of it or thy love. They had all been mine,
They had been pure, they had been innocent
[30] As angels are. How often to that end,
To clear myself of any foul intent,
Did both in precepts and examples bend!
And must it now be an injurious lot
To chafe and heat wax for another’s seal,
To’enamel and to gild a precious pot,
And drink in earth myself? O, I appeal
Unto thy soul whether I have not cause
To change my happiest wishes to this curse,
That thou from changing still may’st never pause,
[40] And every change may be from worse to worse.
Yet, my heart cannot wish, nor thought conceive
Of ill to thine, nor can falsehood whet
My dull mind to revenge. That I will leave
To thee, for thine own guilt will that beget.
Falsehood in others will no more appear
Than ink dropped on mud, or rain on grass,
But in thy heart framed so white and clear
’Twill show like blots in paper, scratches’in glass.
Then for thine own respect and not for mine,
[50] Pity thy self in yet being true, and free
Thy mind from wand’ring. Do but yet decline
All other loves and I will pardon thee;
But look that I have all, for, dear, let me
Either thine only love or no love be.
Epigrams
Hero and Leander
Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground,
Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned.
Pyramus and Thisbe
Two, by themselves, each other, love and fear,
Slain, cruel friends, by parting, have joined here.
Niobe
By children’s birth, and death, I am become
So dry, that I am now mine own sad tomb.
A Burnt Ship
Out of a fired ship, which, by no way
But drowning, could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leaped forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes’ ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship
drowned.
Fall of a Wall
Under an undermined and shot-bruised wall
A too-bold captain perished by the fall,
Whose brave misfortune happiest men envied,
That had a town for a tomb, his bones to hide.
A Lame Beggar
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand or move; if he say true, he lies.
Cales and Guiana
If you from spoil of th’old world’s farthest end
To the new world your kindled valours bend,
What brave examples then do prove it true
That one thing’s end doth still begin a new.
Sir John Wingefield
Beyond th’old pillars many’have travailed
Towards the sun’s cradle, and his throne, and bed.
A fitter pillar our Earl did bestow
In that late island; for he well did know
Farther than Wingefield no man dares to go.
A Self Accuser
Your mistress, that you follow whores, still taxeth you:
’Tis strange that she should thus confess it, though it be true.
A Licentious Person
Thy sins and hairs may no man equal call,
For as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.
Antiquary
If in his study he hath so much care
To’hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.
The Juggler
Thou call’st me effeminate, for I love women’s joys;
I call not thee manly, though thou follow boys.
Disinherited
Thy father all from thee, by his last will
Gave to the poor; thou hast good title still.
The Liar
Thou in the fields walk’st out thy supping hours,
And yet thou swear’st thou hast supped like a king;
Like Nebuchadnezzar perchance with grass and flowers,
A salad worse than Spanish dieting.
Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus
Like Aesop’s fellow-slaves, O Mercury,
Which could do all things, thy faith is; and I
Like Aesop’s self, which nothing; I confess
I should have had more faith if thou had’st less.
Thy credit lost thy credit: ’Tis sin to do,
In this case, as thou would’st be done unto,
To believe all. Change thy name: thou art like
Mercury in stealing, but liest like a Greek.
Phrine
Thy flattering picture, Phrine, is like thee
Only in this, that you both painted be.
An Obscure Writer
Philo, with twelve years study, hath been grieved,
To be understood. When will he be believed?
Klockius
Klockius so deeply’hath sworn, ne’er more to come
In bawdy house, that he dares not go home.
Raderus
Why this man gelded Martial I muse,
Except himself alone his tricks would use,
As Katherine, for the Court’s sake, put down stews.
Ralphius
Compassion in the world again is bred:
Ralphius is sick, the broker keeps his bed.
Faustus
Faustus keeps his sister and a whore,
Faustus keeps his sister and no more.
Elegies
Elegy 1. The Bracelet
Upon the loss of his mistress’ chain, for which he made satisfaction
Not that in colour it was like thy hair,
For armlets of that thou may’st let me wear;
Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kissed,
For so it had that good, which oft I missed;
Nor for that silly old morality
That as these links are tied, our love should be,
Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost;
Nor for the luck’s sake, but the bitter cost.
O, shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet
[10] No leaven of vile solder did admit;
Nor yet by any taint have strayed or gone
From the first state of their creation;
Angels, which heaven commanded to provide
All things to me, and be my faithful guide
To gain new friends, t’appease great enemies,
To comfort my soul when I lie or rise.
Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe
Sentence, dread judge, my sin’s great burden bear?
Shall they be damned and in the furnace thrown,
[20] And punished for offences not their own?
They save not me, they do not ease my pains,
When in that hell they’are burnt and tied in chains.
Were they but crowns of France, I cared not,
For most of them, their natural country’s rot
I think possesseth; they come here to us
So lean, so pale, so lame, so ruinous,
And howsoe’er French kings most Christian be,
Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly;
Or were they Spanish stamps, still travelling,
[30] That are become as Catholic as their king,
Those unlicked bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets
That, more than cannon shot, avails or lets;
Which negligently left u
nrounded look
Like many-angled figures in the book
Of some great conjurer that would enforce
Nature, as these do justice, from her course;
Which, as the soul quickens head, feet, and heart,
As streams, like veins, run through th’earth’s every part,
Visit all countries, and have slyly made
[40] Gorgeous France, ruined, ragged, and decayed,
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day,
And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia.
Or were it such gold as that, wherewithal
Almighty chemics from each mineral
Having by subtle fire a soul out-pulled,
Are dirtily and desperately gulled,
I would not spit to quench the fire they’are in,
For they are guilty of much heinous sin.
But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall
[50] I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all?
Much hope which they should nourish will be dead,
Much of my able youth and lustihead
Will vanish; if thou love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;
O be content that some loud squeaking crier,
Well-pleased with one lean threadbare groat for hire,
May like a devil roar through every street,
And gall the finder’s conscience if they meet.
Or let me creep to some dread conjurer,
[60] Which with fantastic schemes fills full much paper;
Which hath divided heaven in tenements,
And with whores, thieves, and murderers stuffed his rents
So full, that though he pass them all in sin,
He leaves himself no room to enter in.
And if, when all his art and time is spent,
He say ’twill ne’er be found; O be content.
Receive from him that doom ungrudgingly,
Because he is the mouth of destiny.
Thou say’st, alas, the gold doth still remain,
[70] Though it be changed, and put into a chain;
So in the first fallen angels resteth still
Wisdom and knowledge, but ’tis turned to ill,
As these should do good works and should provide
Necessities, but now must nurse thy pride.
And they are still bad angels; mine are none,
For form gives being, and their form is gone.
Pity these angels yet; their dignities
Pass Virtues, Powers, and Principalities.
But thou art resolute; thy will be done;
[80] Yet with such anguish, as her only son
The mother in the hungry grave doth lay,
Unto the fire these martyrs I betray.
Good souls, for you give life to everything,
Good angels, for good messages you bring,
Destined you might have been to such an one
As would have loved and worshipped you alone,
One that would suffer hunger, nakedness,
Yea, death, ere he would make your number less.
But I am guilty of your sad decay;
[90] May your few fellows longer with me stay.
But O thou wretched finder whom I hate
So that I almost pity thy estate;
Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,
May my most heavy curse upon thee fall.
Here fettered, manacled, and hanged in chains
First may’st thou be; then chained to hellish pains;
Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray
Thy country,’and fail both of that and thy pay.
May the next thing thou stoop’st to reach contain
[100] Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain,
Or libels, or some interdicted thing,
Which negligently kept, thy ruin bring.
Lust-bred diseases rot thee’and dwell with thee
Itching desire, and no ability.
May all the evils that gold ever wrought,
All mischief which all devils ever thought,
Want after plenty, poor and gouty age,
The plagues of travellers, love, marriage
Afflict thee, and at thy life’s last moment,
[110] May thy swoll’n sins themselves to thee present.
But I forgive; repent thee honest man:
Gold is restorative, restore it then:
Or if with it thou be’st loath to’depart,
Because ’tis cordial, would ’twere at thy heart.
Elegy 2. The Comparison
As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed muskats’ pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th’early East,
Such are the sweat drops on my mistress breast.
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops but pearl carcanets.
Rank sweaty froth thy mistress’s brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue’of ripe menstruous boils,
Or like the scum which, by need’s lawless law
[10] Enforced, Sanserra’s starved men did draw
From parboiled shoes and boots, and all the rest
Which were with any sovereign fatness blest.
And like vile stones lying in saffroned tin,
Or warts, or wheals, they hang upon her skin.
Round as the world’s her head on every side
Like to the fatal ball which fell on Ide,
Or that whereof God had such jealousy,
As, for the ravishing thereof we die.
Thy head is like a rough-hewn statue’of jet,
[20] Where marks for eyes, nose, mouth, are yet scarce set;
Like the first Chaos, or flat-seeming face
Of Cynthia when th’earth’s shadows her embrace.
Like Proserpina’s white beauty-keeping chest,
Or Jove’s best fortune’s urn, is her fair breast.
Thine’s like worm-eaten trunks clothed in seals’ skin,
Or grave that’s dust without and stink within.
And like that slender stalk, at whose end stands
The woodbine quivering, are her arms and hands.
Like rough-barked elm boughs, or the russet skin
[30] Of men late scourged for madness or for sin,
Like sun-parched quarters on the city gate,
Such is thy tanned skin’s lamentable state.
And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand
The short swoll’n fingers of her gouty hand.
Then like the chemic’s masculine equal fire,
Which in the limbeck’s warm womb doth inspire
Into th’earth’s worthless dirt a soul of gold,
Such cherishing heat her best loved part doth hold.
Thine’s like the dread mouth of a fired gun,
[40] Or like hot liquid metals newly run
Into clay moulds, or like to that Etna
Where round about the grass is burnt away.
Are not your kissings then as filthy’and more,
As a worm sucking an envenomed sore?
Doth not thy fearful hand in feeling quake,
As one which gath’ring flowers, still fears a snake?
Is not your last act harsh and violent,
As when a plough a stony ground doth rent?
So kiss good turtles, so devoutly nice
[50] Are priests in handling reverent sacrifice,
And nice in searching wounds the surgeon is
As we, when we embrace, or touch, or kiss.
Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus,
She and comparisons are odious.
Elegy 3. The Perfume
Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robbed that year,
So am I (by this traitorous means surprised)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove
[10] Thy beauty’s beauty and food of our love,
Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen,
Yet close and secret as our souls we’have been.
Though thy immortal mother which doth lie
Still buried in her bed yet will not die,
Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight,
And watch thy entries and returns all night,
And when she takes thy hand and would seem kind,
Doth search what rings and armlets she can find,
And kissing, notes the colour of thy face,
[20] And fearing lest thou’art swoll’n, doth thee embrace,
To try if thou long, doth name strange meats,
And notes thy paleness, blushing, sighs, and sweats;
And politicly will to thee confess
The sins of her own youth’s rank lustiness;
Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move
Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.
Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprights
Oft skipped into our chamber those sweet nights,
And kissed and ingled on thy father’s knee,
[30] Were bribed next day to tell what they did see.
The grim eight-foot-high iron-bound serving-man,
That oft names God in oaths, and only then,
He, that to bar the first gate doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride,
Which, if in hell no other pains there were,
Makes me fear hell because he must be there,
Though by thy father he were hired for this,
Could never witness any touch or kiss.
But O, too common ill, I brought with me
[40] That which betrayed me to my enemy:
