John Donne

by John Donne

  One like none, and liked of none, fittest were,

  For things in fashion every man will wear.

  Elegy 11. On His Mistress

  By our first strange and fatal interview,

  By all desires which thereof did ensue,

  By our long starving hopes, by that remorse

  Which my words’ masculine persuasive force

  Begot in thee, and by the memory

  Of hurts which spies and rivals threatened me,

  I calmly beg. But by thy father’s wrath,

  By all pains which want and divorcement hath,

  I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I

  [10] And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy

  Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,

  Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.

  Temper, O fair love, love’s impetuous rage,

  Be my true mistress still, not my feigned page.

  I’ll go, and by thy kind leave, leave behind

  Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind

  Thirst to come back; O, if thou die before,

  My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.

  Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move

  [20] Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,

  Nor tame wild Boreas’s harshness; thou hast read

  How roughly he in pieces shivered

  Fair Orithea whom he swore he loved.

  Fall ill or good, ’tis madness to have proved

  Dangers unurged; feed on this flattery,

  That absent lovers one in th’other be.

  Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change

  Thy body’s habit, nor mind’s; be not strange

  To thyself only.’All will spy in thy face

  [30] A blushing, womanly, discovering grace;

  Richly clothed apes are called apes, and as soon

  Eclipsed as bright, we call the moon the moon.

  Men of France, changeable chameleons,

  Spitals’of diseases, shops of fashions,

  Love’s fuellers, and the rightest company

  Of players which upon the world’s stage be,

  Will quickly know thee, and no less, alas,

  Th’indifferent Italian, as we pass

  His warm land, well content to think thee page,

  [40] Will hunt thee with such lust and hideous rage

  As Lot’s fair guests were vexed. But none of these

  Nor spongy’hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease

  If thou stay here. O stay here, for, for thee

  England is only’a worthy gallery

  To walk in expectation, till from thence

  Our greatest King call thee to His presence.

  When I am gone, dream me some happiness,

  Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess,

  Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor bless nor curse

  [50] Openly love’s force, nor in bed fright thy nurse

  With midnight’s startings, crying out, O, O,

  Nurse, O my love is slain, I saw him go

  O’er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,

  Assailed, fight, taken, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die.

  Augur me better chance, except dread Jove

  Think it enough for me to’have had thy love.

  Elegy 12. His Picture

  Here take my picture, though I bid farewell;

  Thine in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.

  ’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more

  When we are shadows both, than ’twas before.

  When weather-beaten I come back – my hand,

  Perhaps with rude oars torn or sunbeams tanned,

  My face and breast of haircloth, and my head

  With care’s rash sudden hoariness o’erspread,

  My body’a sack of bones broken within,

  [10] And powder’s blue stains scattered on my skin –

  If rival fools tax thee to’have loved a man

  So foul and coarse as, O, I may seem then,

  This shall say what I was; and thou shalt say,

  Do his hurts reach me? Doth my worth decay?

  Or do they reach his judging mind that he

  Should now love less, what he did love to see?

  That which in him was fair and delicate

  Was but the milk which in love’s childish state

  Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough

  [20] To feed on that which to’disused tastes seems tough.

  Elegy 13. The Autumnal

  No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace,

  As I have seen in one autumnal face.

  Young beauties force our love, and that’s a rape;

  This doth but counsel, yet you cannot ’scape.

  If t’were a shame to love, here t’were no shame;

  Affections here take reverence’s name.

  Were her first years the Golden Age? That’s true,

  But now she’s gold oft tried, and ever new.

  That was her torrid and inflaming time,

  [10] This is her habitable tropic clime.

  Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,

  He in a fever wishes pestilence.

  Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,

  They were Love’s graves; for else he is nowhere.

  Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit

  Vowed to this trench like an anachorite.

  And here, till hers, which must be his death, come,

  He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.

  Here dwells he, though he sojourn ev’rywhere

  [20] In progress, yet his standing house is here.

  Here, where still evening is, not noon, nor night,

  Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.

  In all her words, unto all hearers fit,

  You may at revels, you at council, sit.

  This is love’s timber, youth his under-wood;

  There he, as wine in June, enrages blood,

  Which then comes seasonabliest when our taste

  And appetite to other things is past.

  Xerxes’ strange Lydian love, the plantain tree,

  [30] Was loved for age, none being so large as she,

  Or else because, being young, Nature did bless

  Her youth with age’s glory, barrenness.

  If we love things long sought, age is a thing

  Which we are fifty years in compassing.

  If transitory things which soon decay,

  Age must be loveliest at the latest day.

  But name not winter faces, whose skin’s slack,

  Lank, as an unthrift’s purse, but a soul’s sack.

  Whose eyes seek light within, for all here’s shade;

  [40] Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out, than made;

  Whose every tooth to’a several place is gone,

  To vex their souls at Resurrection;

  Name not these living death’s heads unto me,

  For these not ancient, but antique be.

  I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay

  With tombs than cradles to wear out a day.

  Since such love’s natural lation is, may still

  My love descend and journey down the hill,

  Not panting after growing beauties, so

  [50] I shall ebb on with them who homeward go.

  Elegy 14. Love’s Progress

  Whoever loves, if he do not propose

  The right true end of love, he’s one that goes

  To sea for nothing but to make him sick.

  Love is a bear-whelp born; if we o’er lick

  Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,

  We err, and of a lump a monster make.

  Were not a calf a monster that were grown

  Faced like a man, though better than his own?

  Perfection is in unity: prefer

  [10] One woman first, and t
hen one thing in her.

  I, when I value gold, may think upon

  The ductileness, the application,

  The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,

  From rust, from soil, from fire ever free.

  But if I love it, ’tis because ’tis made

  By our new nature (use) the soul of trade.

  All these in women we might think upon

  (If women had them), and yet love but one.

  Can men more injure women than to say

  [20] They love them for that by which they’re not they?

  Makes virtue woman? Must I cool my blood

  Till I both be, and find one, wise and good?

  May barren angels love so? But if we

  Make love to woman, virtue is not she,

  As beauty’is not, nor wealth; he that strays thus

  From her to hers is more adulterous

  Than if he took her maid. Search every sphere

  And firmament, our Cupid is not there;

  He’s an infernal god, and underground

  [30] With Pluto dwells where gold and fire abound;

  Men to such gods their sacrificing coals

  Did not on altars lay, but pits and holes.

  Although we see celestial bodies move

  Above the earth, the earth we till and love;

  So we her airs contemplate, words, and heart,

  And virtues, but we love the centric part.

  Nor is the soul more worthy or more fit

  For love than this, as infinite as it.

  But in attaining this desired place

  [40] How much they err that set out at the face.

  The hair a forest is of ambushes,

  Of springes, snares, fetters, and manacles.

  The brow becalms us when ’tis smooth and plain,

  And when ’tis wrinkled, shipwrecks us again;

  Smooth, ’tis a paradise, where we would have

  Immortal stay, but wrinkled ’tis a grave.

  The nose (like to the first meridian) runs

  Not ’twixt an East and West, but ’twixt two suns;

  It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere

  [50] On either side, and then directs us, where

  Upon the islands fortunate we fall

  (Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial),

  Unto her swelling lips when we are come,

  We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,

  For they seem all; there Sirens’ songs, and there

  Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear.

  There in a creek, where chosen pearls do swell

  The remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.

  These and (the glorious promontory)’her chin

  [60] O’er passed, and the strait Hellespont between

  The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,

  Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests,

  Succeeds a boundless sea; but yet thine eye

  Some island moles may scattered there descry;

  And sailing towards her India, in that way

  Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay.

  Though thence the current be thy pilot made,

  Yet ere thou be, where thou would’st be embayed,

  Thou shalt upon another forest set

  [70] Where some do shipwreck, and no further get.

  When thou art there, consider what this chase

  Misspent by thy beginning at the face.

  Rather set out below; practise my art,

  Some symmetry the foot hath with that part

  Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that

  Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at.

  Least subject to disguise and change it is;

  Men say the Devil never can change his.

  It is the emblem that hath figured

  [80] Firmness; ’tis the first part that comes to bed.

  Civility, we see, refined the kiss

  Which at the face began, transplanted is

  Since to the hand, since to the’imperial knee,

  Now at the papal foot delights to be.

  If kings think that the nearer way, and do

  Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too.

  For as free spheres move faster far than can

  Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man

  Which goes this empty and ethereal way,

  [90] Than if at beauty’s elements he stay.

  Rich nature hath in women wisely made

  Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid:

  They then which to the lower tribute owe,

  That way, which that exchequer looks, must go;

  He which doth not, his error is as great

  As who by clyster gave the stomach meat.

  Elegy 15. His Parting from Her

  Since she must go and I must mourn, come night,

  Environ me with darkness whil’st I write:

  Shadow that hell unto me which alone

  I am to suffer when my love is gone;

  Alas, the darkest magic cannot do’it,

  Thou and great hell to boot are shadows to’it.

  Should Cynthia quit thee, Venus, and each star,

  It would not form one thought dark as mine are.

  I could lend thee obscureness now, and say,

  [10] Out of myself, there should be no more day.

  Such is already my felt want of sight

  Did not the fire within me force a light.

  O Love, that fire and darkness should be mixed,

  Or to thy triumphs such strange torments fixed.

  Is’t because thou thyself art blind that we,

  Thy martyrs, must no more each other see?

  Or tak’st thou pride to break us on thy wheel,

  And view old Chaos in the pains we feel?

  Or have left undone some mutual rite

  [20] That thus with parting thou seek’st us to spite?

  No, no. The fault is mine, impute’it to me,

  Or rather to conspiring destiny,

  Which (since I loved) for me before decreed

  That I should suffer when I loved indeed;

  And therefore, now, sooner than I can say

  I saw the golden fruit, ’tis rapt away,

  Or as I’had watched one drop in the vast stream,

  And I left wealthy only in a dream.

  Yet Love, thou’rt blinder than thyself in this

  [30] To vex my dove-like friend for my amiss:

  And where one sad truth may expiate

  Thy wrath, to make her fortune run my fate.

  So blinded Justice doth, when favourites fall,

  Strike them, their house, their friends, their followers all.

  Was’t not enough that thou did’st dart thy fires

  Into our bloods, informing our desires,

  And made’st us sigh, and glow, and pant, and burn,

  And then thyself into our flames did’st turn?

  Was’t not enough that thou didst hazard us

  [40] To paths in love so dark and dangerous,

  And those so ambushed round with household spies,

  And over all the towered husbands eyes

  That flamed with oily sweat of jealousy,

  Yet went we not still on with constancy?

  Have we for this kept our guards, like spy on spy,

  Had correspondence whil’st the foe stood by?

  Stol’n (more to sweeten them) our many blisses

  Of meetings, conference, embracements, kisses,

  Shadowed with negligence our best respects,

  [50] Varied our language through all dialects

  Of becks, winks, looks, and often under-boards

  Spoke dialogues with our feet, far from our words?

  Have we proved all the secrets of our art,

  Yea, thy pale colours inward as thy heart?

  And, after all this passed purgatory,

  Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story?

  First
let our eyes be riveted quite through

  Our turning brains, and both our lips grow to.

  Let our arms clasp like ivy, and our fear

  [60] Freeze us together, that we may stick here

  Till fortune, that would rive us with the deed,

  Strain her eyes open; and it make them bleed.

  For Love it cannot be, whom hitherto

  I have accused, should such a mischief do.

  O fortune, thou’rt not worth my least exclaim,

  And plague enough thou hast in thy own shame.

  Do thy great worst; my friend and I have arms,

  Though not against thy strokes, against thy harms.

  Rend us asunder; thou canst not divide

  [70] Our bodies so, but that our souls are tied;

  And we can love by letters still, and gifts,

  And thoughts, and dreams; love never wanteth shifts.

  I will not look upon the quick’ning sun,

  But straight her beauty to my sense shall run.

  The air shall note her soft, the fire, most pure,

  Waters suggest her clear, and the earth, sure.

  Time shall not loose our passages, the spring,

  How fresh our love was in the beginning,

  The summer, how it enripened the year,

  [80] And autumn, what our golden harvests were.

  The winter I’ll not think on to spite thee,

  But count it a lost season, so shall she.

  And, dearest friend, since we must part, drown night

  With hope of day; burdens well borne are light.

  The cold and darkness longer hang somewhere,

  Yet Phoebus equally lights all the sphere.

  And what we cannot in like portion pay,

  The world enjoys in mass, and so we may.

  Be then ever yourself, and let no woe

  [90] Win on your health, your youth, your beauty; so

  Declare yourself base fortune’s enemy;

  No less be your contempt than her inconstancy,

  That I may grow enamoured on your mind

  When my own thoughts I here neglected find.

  And this to th’comfort of my dear I vow,

  My deeds shall still be what my words are now.

  The poles shall move to teach me ere I start,

  And when I change my love, I’ll change my heart.

  Nay, if I wax but cold in my desire,

  [100] Think heaven hath motion lost, and the world, fire.

  Much more I could, but many words have made

  That oft suspected which men most persuade.

  Take therefore all in this: I love so true

  As I will never look for less in you.

  Elegy 16. The Expostulation