John Donne

by John Donne

  A loud perfume which at my entrance cried

  Even at thy father’s nose; so were we spied.

  When, like a tyrant king that in his bed

  Smelled gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered.

  Had it been some bad smell, he would have thought

  That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought.

  But as we in our isle imprisoned

  Where cattle only’and diverse dogs are bred,

  The precious unicorns, strange monsters, call,

  [50] So thought he good, strange, that had none at all.

  I taught my silks their whistling to forbear,

  Even my oppressed shoes dumb and speechless were,

  Only thou bitter sweet whom I had laid

  Next me, me traitorously hast betrayed,

  And unsuspected hast invisibly

  At once fled unto him and stayed with me.

  Base excrement of earth, which dost confound

  Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound;

  By thee the seely amorous sucks his death

  [60] By drawing in a leprous harlot’s breath;

  By thee, the greatest stain to man’s estate

  Falls on us, to be called effeminate;

  Though you be much loved in the prince’s hall,

  There, things that seem exceed substantial.

  Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well

  Because you’were burnt, not that they liked your smell.

  You’are loathsome all, being taken simply’alone,

  Shall we love ill things joined and hate each one?

  If you were good, your good doth soon decay;

  [70] And you are rare, that takes the good away.

  All my perfumes I give most willingly

  To’embalm thy father’s corpse. What? Will he die?

  Elegy 4. Jealousy

  Fond woman which would’st have thy husband die,

  And yet complain’st of his great jealousy;

  If swoll’n with poison he lay in’his last bed,

  His body with a sere-bark covered,

  Drawing his breath as thick and short as can

  The nimblest crocheting musician,

  Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew

  His soul out of one hell into a new,

  Made deaf with his poor kindred’s howling cries,

  [10] Begging with few feigned tears great legacies,

  Thou would’st not weep, but jolly’and frolic be,

  As a slave which tomorrow should be free;

  Yet weep’st thou when thou see’st him hungrily

  Swallow his own death, hearts-bane jealousy.

  O give him many thanks; he’is courteous,

  That in suspecting, kindly warneth us.

  We must not, as we use’d, flout openly,

  In scoffing riddles, his deformity;

  Nor at his board together being sat,

  [20] With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate.

  Nor when he swoll’n and pampered with great fare

  Sits down and snorts, caged in his basket chair,

  Must we usurp his own bed any more,

  Nor kiss and play in his house, as before.

  Now I see many dangers; for it is

  His realm, his castle, and his diocese.

  But if, as envious men which would revile

  Their prince or coin his gold, themselves exile

  Into another country’and do it there,

  [30] We play’in another house, what should we fear?

  There we will scorn his household policies,

  His seely plots and pensionary spies,

  As the inhabitants of Thames right side

  Do London’s mayor, or Germans the’Pope’s pride.

  Elegy 5. O, Let Me Not Serve So

  O, let me not serve so, as those men serve

  Whom honour’s smokes at once fatten and starve,

  Poorly enriched with great men’s words or looks;

  Nor so write my name in thy loving books

  As those idolatrous flatterers which still

  Their prince’s styles with many realms fulfil

  Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway.

  Such services I offer as shall pay

  Themselves. I hate dead names; O then let me

  [10] Favourite in ordinary or no favourite be.

  When my soul was in her own body sheathed,

  Nor yet by oaths betrothed, nor kisses breathed

  Into my purgatory, faithless thee,

  Thy heart seemed wax and steel thy constancy.

  So careless flowers strewed on the water’s face,

  The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace,

  Yet drown them; so the taper’s beamy eye,

  Amorously twinkling, beckons the’giddy fly,

  Yet burns his wings; and such the devil is,

  [20] Scarce visiting them who’are entirely his.

  When I behold a stream, which from the spring

  Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring,

  Or in a speechless slumber calmly ride

  Her wedded channel’s bosom, and then chide

  And bend her brows, and swell if any bough

  Do but stoop down or kiss her upmost brow;

  Yet, if her often gnawing kisses win

  The traitorous banks to gape and let her in,

  She rusheth violently, and doth divorce

  [30] Her from her native and her long-kept course,

  And roars, and braves it, and in gallant scorn,

  In flattering eddies promising return,

  She flouts the channel, who thenceforth is dry;

  Then say I, that is she, and this am I.

  Yet let not thy deep bitterness beget

  Careless despair in me, for that will whet

  My mind to scorn; and, O, love dulled with pain

  Was ne’er so wise, nor well armed as disdain.

  Then with new eyes I shall survey thee,’and spy

  [40] Death in thy cheeks, and darkness in thine eye.

  Though hope bred faith and love, thus taught, I shall

  As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall.

  My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly

  I will renounce thy dalliance; and when I

  Am the recusant, in that resolute state,

  What hurts it me to be’excommunicate?

  Elegy 6. Nature’s Lay Idiot

  Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love,

  And in that sophistry, O, thou dost prove

  Too subtle, fool, thou didst not understand

  The mystic language of the eye nor hand,

  Nor could’st thou judge the difference of the air

  Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair;

  Nor by th’eye’s water call a malady

  Desperately hot or changing feverously.

  I had not taught thee then the alphabet

  [10] Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set

  And bound up, might with speechless secrecy

  Deliver errands mutely’and mutually.

  Remember since all thy words used to be

  To every suitor, I,’if my friends agree;

  Since household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,

  Were all the love tricks that thy wit could reach;

  And since an hour’s discourse could scarce have made

  One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed

  In broken proverbs and torn sentences.

  [20] Thou art not by so many duties his,

  That from the’world’s common having severed thee,

  Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see,

  As mine, who have with amorous delicacies

  Refined thee’into a blissful paradise.

  Thy graces and good words my creatures be;

  I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee,

  Which, O, shall strangers taste? Must I alas
>
  Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?

  Chafe wax for others’ seals? Break a colt’s force

  [30] And leave him then, being made a ready horse?

  Elegy 7. Love’s War

  Till I have peace with thee, war other men,

  And when I have peace, can I leave thee then?

  All other wars are scrupulous; only thou,

  O fair, free city, may’st thyself allow

  To any one. In Flanders, who can tell

  Whether the master press or men rebel?

  Only we know that which all idiots say:

  They bear most blows which come to part the fray.

  France, in her lunatic giddiness, did hate

  [10] Ever our men, yea and our God of late.

  Yet she relies upon our angels well

  Which ne’er return, no more than they which fell.

  Sick Ireland is with a strange war possessed,

  Like to’an ague, now raging, now at rest,

  Which time will cure; yet, it must do her good

  If she were purged and her head vein let blood.

  And Midas’ joys our Spanish journeys give:

  We touch all gold but find no food to live.

  And I should be in that hot parching clime,

  [20] To dust and ashes turned before my time.

  To mew me in a ship is to enthral

  Me in a prison that were like to fall,

  Or in a cloister, save that there men dwell

  In a calm heaven, here in a swaggering hell.

  Long voyages are long consumptions,

  And ships are carts for executions.

  Yea, they are deaths; is’t not all one to fly

  Into another world as ’tis to die?

  Here let me war, in these arms let me lie;

  [30] Here let me parle, batter, bleed, and die.

  Thy arms imprison me, and mine arms thee;

  Thy heart thy ransom is, take mine for me.

  Other men war that they their rest may gain,

  But we will rest that we may fight again.

  Those wars the’ignorant, these the’experienced love;

  There we are always under, here above.

  There engines far off breed a just true fear;

  Near thrusts, pikes, stabs, yea bullets hurt not here.

  There lies are wrongs; here safe uprightly lie.

  [40] There men kill men; we’will make one by and by.

  Thou nothing; I not half so much shall do

  In those wars as they may which from us two

  Shall spring. Thousands we see which travail not

  To wars but stay swords, arms, and shot

  To make at home; and shall not I do then

  More glorious service staying to make men?

  Elegy 8. To His Mistress Going to Bed

  Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;

  Until I labour, I in labour lie.

  The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

  Is tired with standing though he never fight.

  Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zones glistering,

  But a far fairer world encompassing.

  Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear

  That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

  Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

  [10] Tells me from you that now ’tis your bedtime.

  Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

  That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

  Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals

  As when from flow’ry meads th’hill’s shadow steals.

  Off with that wiry coronet and show

  The hairy diadem which on you doth grow.

  Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread

  In this love’s hallowed temple, this soft bed.

  In such white robes, heaven’s angels used to be

  [20] Received by men; thou, angel, bring’st with thee

  A heaven like Mahomet’s paradise; and though

  Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

  By this these angels from an evil sprite,

  Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

  License my roving hands, and let them go

  Behind, before, above, between, below.

  O my America, my new-found-land,

  My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,

  My mine of precious stones, my empery,

  [30] How blest am I in this discovering thee!

  To enter in these bonds is to be free;

  Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

  Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee,

  As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

  To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

  Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,

  That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a gem,

  His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.

  Like pictures or like books’ gay coverings made

  [40] For lay-men, are all women thus arrayed.

  Themselves are mystic books, which only we

  (Whom their imputed grace will dignify)

  Must see revealed. Then, since that I may know,

  As liberally as to a midwife show

  Thyself. Cast all, yea, this white linen hence,

  There is no penance, much less to innocence.

  To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,

  What need’st thou have more covering than a man?

  Elegy 9. Change

  Although thy hand, and faith, and good works too,

  Have sealed thy love which nothing should undo,

  Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy

  Confirm thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.

  Women are like the arts, forced unto none,

  Open to’all searchers, unprized if unknown.

  If I have caught a bird and let him fly,

  Another fowler using these means as I,

  May catch the same bird; and as these things be,

  [10] Women are made for men, not him, nor me.

  Foxes and goats, all beasts change when they please,

  Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,

  Be bound to one man, and did nature then

  Idly make them apter to’endure than men?

  They’are our clogs, not their own; if a man be

  Chained to a galley, yet the galley’is free.

  Who hath a plough-land casts all his seed corn there,

  And yet allows his ground more corn should bear.

  Though Danuby into the sea must flow,

  [20] The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po.

  By nature, which gave it, this liberty

  Thou lov’st, but O, canst thou love it and me?

  Likeness glues love: then if so thou do

  To make us like and love, must I change too?

  More than thy hate, I hate’it; rather let me

  Allow her change, than change as oft as she,

  And so not teach, but force my’opinion

  To love not anyone, nor everyone.

  To live in one land is captivity,

  [30] To run all countries, a wild roguery.

  Waters stink soon if in one place they bide,

  And in the vast sea are worse putrefied;

  But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this

  Never look back, but the next bank do kiss,

  Then are they purest. Change’is the nursery

  Of music, joy, life, and eternity.

  Elegy 10. The Anagram

  Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she

  Hath all things whereby others beauteous be.

  For though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,

  Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet,

  Though they be dim, yet she is light enough,

  And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rou
gh.

  What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair’s red,

  Give her thine, and she hath a maidenhead.

  These things are beauty’s elements, where these

  [10] Meet in one, that one must as perfect please.

  If red and white and each good quality

  Be in thy wench, ne’er ask where it doth lie.

  In buying things perfumed, we ask if there

  Be musk and amber in it, but not where.

  Though all her parts be not in th’usual place,

  She’hath yet an anagram of a good face.

  If we might put the letters but one way,

  In the lean dearth of words, what could we say?

  When by the gamut some musicians make

  [20] A perfect song, others will undertake

  By the same gamut changed, to equal it.

  Things simply good can never be unfit.

  She’s fair as any, if all be like her,

  And if none be, then she is singular.

  All love is wonder; if we justly do

  Account her wonderful, why’not lovely too?

  Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies,

  Choose this face changed by no deformities.

  Women are all like angels: the fair be

  [30] Like those which fell to worse, but such as she,

  Like to good angels, nothing can impair;

  ’Tis less grief to be foul than to’have been fair.

  For one night’s revels silk and gold we choose,

  But in long journeys cloth and leather use.

  Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say

  There is best land where there is foulest way.

  O what a sovereign plaster will she be

  If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy!

  Here needs no spies, nor eunuchs; her commit

  [40] Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmoset.

  When Belgia’s cities, the round countries drown,

  That dirty foulness guards and arms the town;

  So doth her face guard her. And so for thee,

  Which forced by business, absent oft must be,

  She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night,

  Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem white,

  Who, though seven year, she in the stews had laid,

  A nunnery durst receive and think a maid,

  And though in childbirth’s labour she did lie,

  [50] Midwives would swear, ’twere but a tympany,

  Whom, if she’accuse herself, I credit less

  Than witches which impossibles confess,

  Whom dildoes, bedstaves, and her velvet glass

  Would be as loath to touch as Joseph was;