by John Donne
And not t’have written then seems little less
Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness.
In this, my debt, I seemed loath to confess,
In that I seemed to shun beholdingness.
But ’tis not so; nothings, as I am, may
Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.
Such borrow in their payments, and owe more,
[10] By having leave to write so, than before.
Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are shown,
May not I yield (not gold) but coal or stone?
Temples were not demolished though profane:
Here Peter Jove’s, there Paul hath Dian’s fane.
So whether my hymns you admit or choose,
In me you’have hallowed a pagan muse,
And denizened a stranger who, mistaught
By blamers of the times they marred, hath sought
Virtues in corners, which now bravely do
[20] Shine in the world’s best part, or all it, you.
I have been told that virtue’in courtiers’ hearts
Suffers an ostracism and departs.
Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go,
But whither, only, knowing you, I know;
Your (or you) virtue two vast uses serves,
It ransoms one sex, and one court preserves;
There’s nothing but your worth, which being true,
Is known to any other, not to you.
And you can never know it; to admit
[30] No knowledge of your worth is some of it.
But since to you, your praises discords be,
Stoop, others’ ills to meditate with me.
O! to confess we know not what we should
Is half excuse; we know not what we would.
Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills,
We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills;
As new philosophy arrests the sun,
And bids the passive earth about it run,
So we have dulled our mind, it hath no ends;
[40] Only the body’s busy and pretends;
As dead, low earth eclipses and controls
The quick, high moon, so doth the body, souls.
In none but us are such mixed engines found
As hands of double office: for the ground
We till with them, and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayer-less labours, or, without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that’s none; he which said, Plough
And look not back, to look up doth allow.
Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys
[50] The soil’s disease and into cockle strays.
Let the mind’s thoughts be but transplanted so
Into the body,’and bastardly they grow.
What hate can hurt our bodies like our love?
We, but no foreign tyrants, could remove
These not engraved but inborn dignities,
Caskets of souls, temples, and palaces,
For bodies shall from death redeemed be,
Souls but preserved, not naturally free;
As men to’our prisons, new souls to’us are sent,
[60] Which learn vice there and come in innocent.
First seeds of every creature are in us,
What ere the world hath bad or precious
Man’s body can produce; hence it hath been
That stones, worms, frogs, and snakes in man are seen;
But who e’er saw, though nature can work so,
That pearl, or gold, or corn in man did grow?
We’have added to the world Virginia,’and sent
Two new stars lately to the firmament;
Why grudge we us (not heaven) the dignity
[70] T’increase with ours, those fair souls’ company!
But I must end this letter, though it do
Stand on two truths, neither is true to you.
Virtue hath some perverseness, for she will
Neither believe her good, nor others ill.
Even in you, virtue’s best paradise,
Virtue hath some, but wise degrees of vice.
Too many virtues or too much of one
Begets in you unjust suspicion.
And ignorance of vice makes virtue less,
[80] Quenching compassion of our wretchedness.
But these are riddles; some aspersion
Of vice becomes well some complexion.
Statesmen purge vice with vice, and may corrode
The bad with bad, a spider with a toad,
For so ill thralls not them, but they tame ill
And make her do much good against her will;
But in your commonwealth, or world in you,
Vice hath no office or good work to do.
Take then no vicious purge, but be content
[90] With cordial virtue, your known nourishment.
To the Countess of Bedford, on New Year’s Day
This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who meteor-like, of stuff and form perplexed,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
If I should call me anything, should miss.
I sum the years and me, and find me not
Debtor to th’old nor creditor to th’new,
That cannot say, My thanks I have forgot,
Nor trust I this with hopes, and yet scarce true,
[10] This bravery is since these times showed me you.
In recompense I would show future times
What you were, and teach them to’urge towards such.
Verse embalms virtue;’and tombs, or thrones of rhymes,
Preserve frail transitory fame as much
As spice doth bodies from corrupt air’s touch.
Mine are short-lived; the tincture of your name
Creates in them, but dissipates as fast
New spirits, for strong agents with the same
Force that doth warm and cherish us do waste;
[20] Kept hot with strong extracts, no bodies last.
So my verse, built of your just praise, might want
Reason and likelihood, the firmest base,
And made of miracle, now faith is scant,
Will vanish soon, and so possess no place,
And you, and it, too much grace might disgrace.
When all (as truth commands assent) confess
All truth of you, yet they will doubt how I,
One corn of one low anthill’s dust, and less,
Should name, know, or express a thing so high,
[30] And not an inch, measure infinity.
I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,
But leave, lest truth be’endangered by my praise,
And turn to God, who knows I think this true,
And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,
To make it good, for such a praiser prays.
He will best teach you, how you should lay out
His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood;
He will perplex security with doubt,
And clear those doubts; hide from you,’and show you good,
[40] And so increase your appetite and food;
He will teach you that good and bad have not
One latitude in cloisters and in court;
Indifference there the greatest space hath got;
Some pity’is not good there, some vain disport,
On this side, sin with that place may comport.
Yet he, as he bounds seas, will fix your hours,
Which pleasure and delight may not ingress,
And though what none else lost, be truliest yours,
He will make you, what you did not, possess,
[50] By using others, not vice, but weakness.
He will make you speak truths, and credibly,
And make you doubt that others do not so;
He will prov
ide you keys and locks to spy
And ’scape spies, to good ends, and he will show
What you may not acknowledge, what not know.
For your own conscience, he gives innocence,
But for your fame, a discreet wariness,
And though to ’scape than to revenge offence
Be better, he shows both, and to repress
[60] Joy, when your state swells, sadness when ’tis less.
From need of tears he will defend your soul,
Or make a rebaptizing of one tear;
He cannot (that’s, he will not) dis-enrol
Your name; and when with active joy we hear
This private gospel, then ’tis our New Year.
To the Countess of Bedford Begun in France but never perfected
Though I be dead and buried, yet I have
(Living in you) court enough in my grave,
As oft as there I think myself to be,
So many resurrections waken me.
That thankfulness your favours have begot
In me embalms me that I do not rot.
This season, as ’tis Easter, as ’tis spring,
Must both to growth and to confession bring
My thoughts disposed unto your influence, so
[10] These verses bud, so these confessions grow.
First I confess I have to others lent
Your stock and over prodigally spent
Your treasure, for since I had never known
Virtue or beauty but as they are grown
In you, I should not think or say they shine
(So as I have) in any other mine.
Next I confess this my confession,
For ’tis some fault thus much to touch upon
Your praise to you, where half rights seem too much,
[20] And make your mind’s sincere complexion blush.
Next I confess my’impenitence, for I
Can scarce repent my first fault, since thereby
Remote low spirits, which shall ne’er read you,
May in less lessons find enough to do
By studying copies, not originals,
Desunt cætera.
To the Lady Bedford
You that are she, and you, that’s double she,
In her dead face, half of your self shall see.
She was the other part, for so they do,
Which build them friendships, become one of two;
So two that but themselves no third can fit,
Which were to be so, when they were not yet
Twins, though their birth Cusco and Musco take;
As diverse stars one constellation make,
Paired like two eyes, have equal motion, so
[10] Both but one means to see, one way to go.
Had you died first, a carcass she had been,
And we your rich tomb in her face had seen.
She like the soul is gone, and you here stay,
Not a live friend, but th’other half of clay,
And since you act that part, as men say, here
Lies such a prince, when but one part is there,
And do all honour, and devotion due
Unto the whole, so we all reverence you.
For such a friendship who would not adore
[20] In you, who are all what both were before,
Not all, as if some perished by this,
But so, as all in you contracted is.
As of this all, though many parts decay,
The pure which elemented them shall stay,
And though diffused and spread in infinite,
Shall recollect, and in one all unite;
So, madam, as her soul to heaven is fled,
Her flesh rests in the earth as in the bed.
Her virtues do, as to their proper sphere,
[30] Return to dwell with you, of whom they were;
As perfect motions are all circular,
So they to you, their sea, whence less streams are.
She was all spices, you all metals; so
In you two we did both rich Indies know,
And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste
One dram of gold, but what was first shall last,
Though it be forced in water, earth, salt, air,
Expansed in infinite, none will impair.
So to yourself you may additions take,
[40] But nothing can you less or changed make.
Seek not in seeking new to seem to doubt
That you can match her, or not be without,
But let some faithful book in her room be,
Yet but of Judith no such book as she.
To Sir Edward Herbert, at Juliers
Man is a lump where all beasts kneaded be,
Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree;
The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar,
Is sport to others and a theatre,
Nor ’scapes he so, but is himself their prey;
All which was man in him is eat away,
And now his beasts on one another feed,
Yet couple’in anger, and new monsters breed;
How happy’is he which hath due place assigned
[10] To’his beasts, and disaforested his mind!
Impaled himself to keep them out, not in;
Can sow, and dares trust corn, where they have been;
Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast,
And is not ass himself to all the rest.
Else man not only is the herd of swine,
But he’s those devils too which did incline
Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse,
For man can add weight to heaven’s heaviest curse.
As souls (they say) by our first touch take in
[20] The poisonous tincture of original sin,
So to the punishments which God doth fling,
Our apprehension contributes the sting.
To us, as to His chickens, He doth cast
Hemlock, and we as men, His hemlock taste.
We do infuse to what He meant for meat,
Corrosiveness, or intense cold or heat.
For, God no such specific poison hath
As kills we know not how; His fiercest wrath
Hath no antipathy, but may be good
[30] At least for physic, if not for our food.
Thus man, that might be’his pleasure, is his rod,
And is his devil, that might be his God.
Since then, our business is to rectify
Nature to what she was; we’are led awry
By them who man to us in little show;
Greater than due, no form we can bestow
On him; for man into himself can draw
All; all his faith can swallow,’or reason chaw.
All that is filled, and all that which doth fill,
[40] All the round world to man is but a pill,
In all it works not, but it is in all
Poisonous, or purgative, or cordial,
For knowledge kindles calentures in some,
And is to others icy opium.
As brave as true is that profession then
Which you do use to make, that you know man.
This makes it credible: you have dwelt upon
All worthy books, and now are such an one.
Actions are authors, and of those in you
[50] Your friends find every day a mart of new.
To the Countess of Huntingdon
That unripe side of earth, that heavy clime
That gives us man up now, like Adam’s time
Before he ate; man’s shape, that would yet be
(Knew they not it, and feared beasts’ company)
So naked at this day, as though man there
From paradise so great a distance were,
As yet the news could not arrived be
Of Adam’s tasting the forbidden tree,
Deprived of that free state which they were
in,
[10] And wanting the reward, yet bear the sin;
But, as from extreme heights who downward looks,
Sees men at children’s shapes, rivers at brooks,
And loseth younger forms, so to your eye
These (Madame), that without your distance lie,
Must either mist or nothing seem to be,
Who are at home but wit’s mere atomi.
But I, who can behold them move and stay,
Have found myself to you just their midway,
And now must pity them; for as they do
[20] Seem sick to me, just so must I to you,
Yet neither will I vex your eyes to see
A sighing ode, nor cross-armed elegy.
I come not to call pity from your heart,
Like some white-livered dotard that would part
Else from his slippery soul with a faint groan,
And faithfully (without you smiled) were gone.
I cannot feel the tempest of a frown,
I may be raised by love, but not thrown down.
Though I can pity those sigh twice a day,
[30] I hate that thing whispers itself away.
Yet since all love is fever, who to trees
Doth talk, doth yet in love’s cold ague freeze.
’Tis love, but with such fatal weakness made
That it destroys itself with its own shade.
Who first looked sad, grieved, pined, and showed his pain,
Was he that first taught women to disdain.
As all things were one nothing, dull and weak,
Until this raw disordered heap did break,
And several desires led parts away –
[40] Water declined with earth, the air did stay,
Fire rose, and each from other but untied,
Themselves unprisoned were and purified –
So was love first in vast confusion hid,
An unripe willingness which nothing did,
A thirst, an appetite which had no ease,
That found a want but knew not what would please.
What pretty innocence in those days moved?
Man ignorantly walked by her he loved;
Both sighed and interchanged a speaking eye,
[50] Both trembled and were sick, both knew not why.
That natural fearfulness that struck man dumb,
Might well (those times considered) man become.
As all discoverers whose first assay
Finds but the place, after, the nearest way,
So passion is to woman’s love, about,
Nay farther off, than when we first set out.
It is not love that sueth or doth contend;
Love either conquers, or but meets a friend.
Man’s better part consists of purer fire,
