John Donne

by John Donne

That I can take no new in bigamy,

  Not my will only but power doth withhold.

  Hence comes it that these rhymes, which never had

  Mother, want matter, and they only have

  A little form, the which their father gave.

  They are profane, imperfect, O, too bad

  To be counted children of poetry,

  Except confirmed, and bishoped by thee.

  To E. of D. with Six Holy Sonnets

  See, sir, how as the sun’s hot masculine flame

  Begets strange creatures on Nile’s dirty slime,

  In me, your fatherly yet lusty rhyme

  (For these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.

  But though the’engend’ring force from whence they came

  Be strong enough, and nature do admit

  Seven to be born at once, I send as yet

  But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.

  I choose your judgement, which the same degree

  [10] Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,

  As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,

  Or as elixir, to change them to gold.

  You are that alchemist which always had

  Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.

  To Sir Henry Goodyere

  Who makes the past a pattern for next year

  Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads;

  Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear,

  And makes his life but like a pair of beads.

  A palace, when ’tis that, which it should be,

  Leaves growing and stands such, or else decays;

  But he which dwells there is not so, for he

  Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise;

  So had your body’her morning, hath her noon,

  [10] And shall not better; her next change is night;

  But her fair larger guest, to’whom sun and moon

  Are sparks and short lived, claims another right.

  The noble soul by age grows lustier,

  Her appetite and her digestion mend;

  We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her

  With women’s milk and pap unto the end.

  Provide you manlier diet; you have seen

  All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts;

  But ask your garners if you have not been

  [20] In harvests too indulgent to your sports.

  Would you redeem it? Then yourself transplant

  A while from hence. Perchance outlandish ground

  Bears no more wit than ours, but yet more scant

  Are those diversions there which here abound.

  To be a stranger hath that benefit,

  We can beginnings, but not habits choke.

  Go, whither? Hence, you get, if you forget;

  New faults, till they prescribe in us, are smoke.

  Our soul, whose country’is heaven, and God her father,

  [30] Into this world, corruption’s sink, is sent;

  Yet so much in her travail she doth gather

  That she returns home wiser than she went.

  It pays you well, if it teach you to spare,

  And make you’ashamed, to make your hawk’s praise, yours,

  Which when herself she lessens in the air,

  You then first say that high enough she towers.

  However, keep the lively taste you hold

  Of God; love him as now, but fear him more,

  And in your afternoons think what you told

  [40] And promised him at morning prayer before.

  Let falsehood like a discord anger you,

  Else be not froward. But why do I touch

  Things of which none is in your practice new,

  And tables or fruit-trenchers teach as much;

  But thus I make you keep your promise, sir;

  Riding I had you, though you still stayed there,

  And in these thoughts, although you never stir,

  You came with me to Mitcham, and are here.

  A Letter Written by Sir H. G. and J. D. alternis vicibus

  Since ev’ry tree begins to blossom now,

  Perfuming and enamelling each bow,

  Hearts should as well as they some fruits allow.

  For since one old, poor sun serves all the rest,

  You sev’ral suns that warm and light each breast,

  Do, by that influence, all your thoughts digest.

  And that you two may so your virtues move

  On better matter than beams from above,

  Thus our twin’d souls send forth these buds of love.

  [10] As in devotions men join both their hands,

  We make ours do one act, to seal the bands,

  By which we’enthral ourselves to your commands.

  And each for other’s faith and zeal stand bound,

  As safe as spirits are from any wound,

  So free from impure thoughts they shall be found.

  Admit our magic then, by which we do

  Make you appear to us, and us to you,

  Supplying all the muses in you two.

  We do consider no flower that is sweet,

  [20] But we your breath in that exhaling meet,

  And as true types of you, them humbly greet.

  Here in our nightingales we hear you sing,

  Who so do make the whole year through a spring,

  And save us from the fear of autumn’s sting.

  In anchors’ calm face we your smoothness see,

  Your minds unmingled and as clear as she

  That keeps untoucht her first virginity.

  Did all St Edith nuns descend again

  To honour Polesworth with their cloistered train,

  [30] Compared with you each would confess some stain.

  Or should we more bleed out our thoughts in ink

  No paper (though it would be glad to drink

  Those drops) could comprehend what we do think.

  For t’were in us ambition to write

  So, that because we two, you two unite,

  Our letter should as you, be infinite.

  To Mrs M. H.

  Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burn

  With all those suns whom my brain did create;

  At least lie hid with me till thou return

  To rags again, which is thy native state.

  What though thou have enough unworthiness

  To come unto great place as others do,

  That’s much (emboldens, pulls, thrusts I confess),

  But ’tis not all; thou should’st be wicked too.

  And that thou canst not learn, or not of me;

  [10] Yet thou wilt go. Go, since thou goest to her

  Who lacks but faults to be a prince, for she,

  Truth, whom they dare not pardon, dares prefer.

  But when thou com’st to that perplexing eye

  Which equally claims love and reverence,

  Thou wilt not long dispute it, thou wilt die;

  And, having little now, have then no sense.

  Yet when her warm redeeming hand, which is

  A miracle, and made such to work more,

  Doth touch thee (saple’s leaf), thou grow’st by this

  [20] Her creature, glorified more than before.

  Then, as a mother which delights to hear

  Her early child misspeak half uttered words,

  Or because majesty doth never fear

  Ill or bold speech, she audience affords.

  And then, cold speechless wretch, thou diest again,

  And wisely; what discourse is left for thee?

  For speech of ill, and her, thou must abstain,

  And is there any good which is not she?

  Yet may’st thou praise her servants, though not her,

  [30] And wit, and virtue,’and honour her attend;

  And since they’are but her clothes, thou shalt not err

 
If thou her shape and beauty’and grace commend.

  Who knows thy destiny? When thou hast done,

  Perchance her cabinet may harbour thee,

  Whither all noble,’ambitious wits do run,

  A nest almost as full of good as she.

  When thou art there, if any whom we know

  Were saved before, and did that heaven partake,

  When she revolves his papers, mark what show

  [40] Of favour, she, alone, to them doth make.

  Mark, if to get them, she o’er skip the rest;

  Mark, if she read them twice, or kiss the name;

  Mark, if she do the same that they protest;

  Mark, if she mark whether her woman came.

  Mark, if slight things be’objected, and o’er blown;

  Mark, if her oaths against him be not still

  Reserved, and that she grieves she’s not her own,

  And chides the doctrine that denies free will.

  I bid thee not do this to be my spy,

  [50] Nor to make myself her familiar;

  But so much do I love her choice that I

  Would fain love him that shall be loved of her.

  To the Countess of Bedford

  Madame,

  Reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right,

  By these we reach divinity, that’s you;

  Their loves, who have the blessings of your light,

  Grew from their reason, mine from fair faith grew.

  But as, although a squint left-handedness

  Be’ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand,

  So would I, not to increase but to’express

  My faith, as I believe, so understand.

  Therefore I study you first in your saints,

  [10] Those friends whom your election glorifies,

  Then in your deeds, accesses, and restraints,

  And what you read, and what yourself devise.

  But soon the reasons why you’are loved by all

  Grow infinite, and so pass reason’s reach,

  Then back again to’implicit faith I fall,

  And rest on what the catholic voice doth teach:

  That you are good, and not one heretic

  Denies it; if he did, yet you are so.

  For rocks, which high-topped and deep-rooted stick,

  [20] Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.

  In every thing there naturally grows

  A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,

  If’twere not injured by extrinsic blows;

  Your birth and beauty are this balm in you.

  But you of learning, and religion,

  And virtue,’and such ingredients have made

  A mithridate whose operation

  Keeps off or cures what can be done or said.

  Yet this is not your physic, but your food,

  [30] A diet fit for you; for you are here

  The first good angel, since the world’s frame stood,

  That ever did in woman’s shape appear.

  Since you are then God’s masterpiece, and so

  His factor for our loves, do as you do,

  Make your return home gracious, and bestow

  This life on that; so make one life of two.

  For so God help me,’I would not miss you there

  For all the good which you can do me here.

  To the Countess of Bedford

  Honour is so sublime perfection,

  And so refined, that when God was alone

  And creatureless at first, himself had none;

  But as of the’elements, these which we tread

  Produce all things with which we’are joyed or fed,

  And those are barren both above our head;

  So from low persons doth all honour flow;

  Kings, whom they would have honoured, to us show,

  And but direct our honour, not bestow.

  [10] For when from herbs the pure part must be won

  From gross, by stilling, this is better done

  By despised dung, than by the fire or sun.

  Care not then, Madame,’how low your praisers lie;

  In labourers’ ballads oft more piety

  God finds than in Te Deums’ melody.

  And ordnance raised on towers so many mile

  Send not their voice, nor last so long a while

  As fires from th’earth’s low vaults in Sicil Isle.

  Should I say I lived darker than were true,

  [20] Your radiation can all clouds subdue,

  But one, ’tis best light to contemplate you –

  You, for whose body God made better clay,

  Or took soul’s stuff such as shall late decay,

  Or such as needs small change at the last day.

  This, as an amber drop enwraps a bee,

  Covering discovers your quick soul, that we

  May in your through-shine front your heart’s thoughts see.

  You teach (though we learn not) a thing unknown

  To our late times, the use of specular stone,

  [30] Through which all things within without were shown.

  Of such were temples; so’and of such you are;

  Being and seeming is your equal care,

  And virtue’s whole sum is but know and dare.

  But as our souls of growth and souls of sense

  Have birthright of our reason’s soul, yet hence

  They fly not from that, nor seek precedence.

  Nature’s first lesson, so, discretion,

  Must not grudge zeal a place, nor yet keep none,

  Not banish itself, nor religion.

  [40] Discretion is a wiseman’s soul, and so

  Religion is a Christian’s, and you know

  How these are one; her yea is not her no.

  Nor may we hope to solder still and knit

  These two, and dare to break them, nor must wit

  Be colleague to religion, but be it.

  In those poor types of God (round circles) so

  Religion tips, the pieceless centres flow,

  And are in all the lines which all ways go.

  If either ever wrought in you alone

  [50] Or principally, then religion

  Wrought your ends, and your ways, discretion.

  Go thither still, go the same way you went,

  Who so would change, do covet or repent;

  Neither can reach you, great and innocent.

  To the Countess of Bedford

  Madame,

  You have refined me, and to worthiest things

  Virtue, art, beauty, fortune, now I see

  Rareness or use, not nature, value brings;

  And such, as they are circumstanced, they be.

  Two ills can ne’er perplex us, sin to’excuse;

  But of two good things, we may leave and choose.

  Therefore at court, which is not virtue’s clime,

  Where a transcendent height (as lowness me)

  Makes her not be, or not show, all my rhyme

  [10] Your virtues challenge which there rarest be;

  For as dark texts need notes, there some must be

  To usher virtue, and say, This is she.

  So in the country’is beauty; to this place

  You are the season (Madame), you the day,

  ’Tis but a grave of spices till your face

  Exhale them, and a thick close bud display.

  Widowed and reclused else, her sweets she’enshrines

  As China when the sun at Brazil dines.

  Out from your chariot morning breaks at night,

  [20] And falsifies both computations so;

  Since a new world doth rise here from your light,

  We your new creatures, by new reck’nings go.

  This shows that you from nature loathly stray,

  That suffer not an artificial day.

  In this you’have made the court the’antipodes,

  And willed your delegate, th
e vulgar sun,

  To do profane autumnal offices,

  Whil’st here to you, we sacrificers run;

  And whether priests or organs, you we’obey,

  [30] We sound your influence, and your dictates say.

  Yet to that deity which dwells in you,

  Your virtuous soul, I now not sacrifice;

  These are petitions and not hymns; they sue

  But that I may survey the edifice.

  In all religions as much care hath been

  Of temples’ frames and beauty,’as rites within.

  As all which go to Rome do not thereby

  Esteem religions, and hold fast the best,

  But serve discourse and curiosity,

  [40] With that which doth religion but invest,

  And shun th’entangling labyrinths of schools,

  And make it wit to think the wiser fools;

  So in this pilgrimage I would behold

  You as you’are, virtue’s temple, not as she,

  What walls of tender crystal her enfold,

  What eyes, hands, bosom, her pure altars be;

  And after this survey, oppose to all

  Babblers of chapels, you th’Escuriall.

  Yet not as consecrate, but merely’as fair;

  [50] On these I cast a lay and country eye.

  Of past and future stories which are rare,

  I find you all record, all prophecy.

  Purge but the book of fate that it admit

  No sad nor guilty legends, you are it.

  If good and lovely were not one, of both

  You were the transcript and original,

  The elements, the parent, and the growth,

  And every piece of you is both their all,

  So’entire are all your deeds and you that you

  [60] Must do the same thing still; you cannot two.

  But these (as nice, thin, school divinity

  Serves heresy to further or repress)

  Taste of poetic rage, or flattery,

  And need not, where all hearts one truth profess;

  Oft from new proofs and new phrase, new doubts grow,

  As strange attire aliens the men we know.

  Leaving then the busy praise and all appeal

  To higher courts, sense’s decree is true,

  The mine, the magazine, the commonweal,

  [70] The story’of beauty’in Twicknam is, and you.

  Who hath seen one, would both, as who had been

  In paradise would seek the Cherubim.

  To the Countess of Bedford

  T’have written then, when you writ, seemed to me

  Worst of spiritual vices, simony,