by John Donne
She, after whom, what form soe’er we see,
Is discord and rude incongruity;
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how ugly a monster this world is;
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
That here is nothing to enamour thee,
And that, not only faults in inward parts,
[330] Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts,
Poisoning the fountains, whence our actions spring,
Endanger us: but that if everything
Be not done fitly’and in proportion,
To satisfy wise and good lookers-on
(Since most men be such as most think they be),
They’re loathsome too, by this deformity.
For good, and well, must in our actions meet:
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
But beauty’s other second element,
[340] Colour and lustre now is as near spent.
And had the world his just proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.
As a compassionate turquoise which doth tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well,
As gold falls sick being stung with mercury,
All the world’s parts of such complexion be.
When nature was most busy, the first week,
Swaddling the newborn earth, God seemed to like
That she should sport herself sometimes and play,
[350] To mingle and vary colours every day.
And then, as though she could not make enow,
Himself His various rainbow did allow.
Sight is the noblest sense of any one,
Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,
And colour is decayed: summer’s robe grows
Dusky, and like an oft-dyed garment shows.
Our blushing red, which used in cheeks to spread,
Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red.
Perchance the world might have recovered,
[360] If she whom we lament had not been dead;
But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue
(Beauty’s ingredients) voluntary grew
As in an unvexed paradise; from whom
Did all things verdure, and their lustre come;
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all diaphanous
(For air, and fire but thick, gross bodies were,
And liveliest stones but drowsy and pale to her),
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,
[370] Thou know’st how wan a ghost this our world is;
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
That it should more affright than pleasure thee.
And that, since all fair colour then did sink,
’Tis now but wicked vanity to think
To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,
Weakness in the want of correspondence of heaven and earth.
Or with bought colours to elude men’s sense.
Nor in ought more this world’s decay appears,
Than that her influence the heav’n forbears,
Or that the elements do not feel this,
[380] The father or the mother barren is.
The clouds conceive not rain, or do not pour
In the due birthtime down the balmy shower.
Th’air doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth.
Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs;
And false conceptions fill the general wombs.
Th’air shows such meteors as none can see,
Not only what they mean, but what they be;
Earth such new worms, as would have troubled much
[390] Th’Egyptian mages to have made more such.
What artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heaven hither, or constellate anything,
So as the influence of those stars may be
Imprisoned in an herb, or charm, or tree,
And do by touch all which those stars could do?
The art is lost, and correspondence too.
For heav’n gives little, and the earth takes less,
And man least knows their trade and purposes.
If this commerce ’twixt heaven and earth were not
[400] Embarred, and all this traffic quite forgot,
She, for whose loss we have lamented thus,
Would work more fully’and pow’rfully on us.
Since herbs and roots by dying lose not all,
But they, yea ashes too, are medicinal,
Death could not quench her virtue so, but that
It would be (if not followed) wondered at,
And all the world would be one dying swan,
To sing her funeral praise, and vanish then.
But as some serpents poison hurteth not,
[410] Except it be from the live serpent shot,
So doth her virtue need her here to fit
That unto us, she working more than it.
But she, in whom to such maturity,
Virtue was grown, past growth, that it must die;
She from whose influence all impressions came,
But, by receivers’ impotencies, lame;
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet gilded every state,
So that some princes have some temperance,
[420] Some counsellors some purpose to advance
The common profit, and some people have
Some stay, no more than kings should give, to crave,
Some women have some taciturnity,
Some nunneries, some grains of chastity;
She that did thus much, and much more could do,
But that our age was iron, and rusty too,
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,
Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is.
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
[430] That ’tis in vain to dew or mollify
It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood: nothing
Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,
But those rich joys which did possess her heart,
Of which she’s now partaker, and a part.
But as in cutting up a man that’s dead,
Conclusion.
The body will not last out to have read
On every part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts that are of most effect,
So the world’s carcass would not last if I
[440] Were punctual in this anatomy.
Nor smells it well to hearers if one tell
Them their disease, who fain would think they’re well.
Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,
Of whom is meant what ever hath been said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines coarse lines, and makes prose song,
Accept this tribute and his first year’s rent,
Who till his dark short taper’s end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth,
[450] Will yearly celebrate thy second birth,
That is, thy death. For though the soul of man
Be got when man is made, ’tis born but then
When man doth die. Our body’s as the womb,
And as a midwife, death directs it home.
And you her creatures, whom she works upon
And have your last and best concoction
From her example and her virtue, if you
In reverence to her, do think it due
That no one should her praises thus rehearse,
[460] As matter fit for chronicle, not verse,
Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make
A last and lasting’st piece, a song. He spake
That song, because He knew they would let fall,
The law, the prophets, and the history,
But keep the song still in their memory.
Such an opinion (in due measure) made
Me this great office boldly to invade.
Nor could incomprehensibleness deter
[470] Me from thus trying to imprison her,
Which when I saw that a strict grave could do,
I saw not why verse might not do so too.
Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls,
The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrols.
A Funeral Elegy
’Tis lost, to trust a tomb with such a guest,
Or to confine her in a marble chest.
Alas, what’s marble, jet, or porphyry,
Prized with the chrysolite of either eye,
Or with those pearls and rubies which she was?
Join the two Indies in one tomb, ’tis glass,
And so is all to her materials,
Though every inch were ten escurials.
Yet she’s demolished. Can we keep her then
[10] In works of hands, or of the wits of men?
Can these memorials, rags of paper, give
Life to that name, by which name they must live?
Sickly, alas, short-lived, aborted be
Those carcass verses, whose soul is not she.
And can she, who no longer would be she,
Being such a tabernacle, stoop to be
In paper wrapped, or when she would not lie
In such a house, dwell in an elegy?
But ’tis no matter; we may well allow
[20] Verse to live so long as the world will now,
For her death wounded it. The world contains
Princes for arms, and counsellors for brains,
Lawyers for tongues, divines for hearts, and more:
The rich for stomachs, and for backs the poor,
The officers for hands, merchants for feet
By which remote and distant countries meet.
But those fine spirits, which do tune and set
This organ, are those pieces which beget
Wonder and love, and these were she. And she
[30] Being spent, the world must needs decrepit be.
For, since death will proceed to triumph still,
He can find nothing after her to kill
Except the world itself, so great as she.
Thus brave and confident may nature be;
Death cannot give her such another blow,
Because she cannot such another show.
But must we say she’s dead? May’t not be said
That, as a sundered clock is piecemeal laid,
Not to be lost, but by the maker’s hand
[40] Repolished, without error then to stand,
Or as the Afric Niger stream enwombs
Itself into the earth, and after comes
(Having first made a natural bridge to pass
For many leagues) far greater than it was,
May’t not be said that her grave shall restore
Her, greater, purer, firmer, than before?
Heaven may say this and joy in’t, but can we,
Who live and lack her, here this vantage see?
What is’t to us, alas, if there have been
[50] An angel made a throne or cherubim?
We lose by’t. And as aged men are glad,
Being tasteless grown, to joy in joys they had,
So now the sick starved world must feed upon
This joy that we had her who now is gone.
Rejoice then, nature, and this world, that you,
Fearing the last fires hast’ning to subdue
Your force and vigour ere it were near gone,
Wisely bestowed and laid it all on one,
One, whose clear body was so pure and thin,
[60] Because it need disguise no thought within.
’Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to’enrol,
Or exhalation breathed out from her soul.
One, whom all men who durst no more, admired,
And whom, who ere had worth enough, desired,
As, when a temple’s built, saints emulate
To which of them it shall be consecrate.
But, as when heaven looks on us with new eyes,
Those new stars ev’ry artist exercise,
What place they should assign to them they doubt,
[70] Argue, and agree not, till those stars go out,
So the world studied whose this piece should be
Till she can be nobody’s else, nor she.
But like a lamp of balsamum, desired
Rather to’adorn than last, she soon expired,
Clothed in her virgin white integrity,
For marriage, though it do not stain, doth dye.
To ’scape th’infirmities which wait upon
Woman, she went away before she’was one;
And the world’s busy noise to overcome,
[80] Took so much death as served for opium.
For though she could not, nor could choose to die,
She’hath yielded to too long an ecstasy.
He, which not knowing her sad history
Should come to read the book of destiny,
How fair and chaste, humble and high, she’had been,
Much promised, much performed, at not fifteen,
And measuring future things by things before,
Should turn the leaf to read, and read no more,
Would think that either destiny mistook
[90] Or that some leaves were torn out of the book.
But ’tis not so. Fate did but usher her
To years of reason’s use, and then infer
Her destiny to herself, which liberty
She took, but for thus much, thus much to die.
Her modesty not suffering her to be
Fellow-commissioner with destiny,
She did no more but die. If after her
Any shall live which dare true good prefer,
Every such person is her delegate
[100] To’accomplish that which should have been her fate.
They shall make up that book, and shall have thanks
Of fate and her, for filling up their blanks,
For future virtuous deeds are legacies,
Which, from the gift of her example rise.
And ’tis in heaven, part of spiritual mirth
To see how well the good play her on earth.
The Harbinger to the Progress [Probably by Joseph Hall]
Two souls move here, and mine (a third) must move
Paces of admiration and of love.
Thy soul (dear virgin) whose this tribute is,
Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss,
And yet moves still, and still aspires to see
The world’s last day, thy glories’ full degree;
Like as those stars which thou o’erlookest far
Are in their place, and yet still moved are,
No soul (whiles with the luggage of this clay
[10] It clogged is) can follow thee half way,
Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo
So fast, that now the lightning moves but slow.
But now thou art as high in heaven flown
As heav’n’s from us; what soul besides thine own
Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate
Thy glorious journals in that blessed state?
I envy thee (rich soul), I envy thee,
Although I cannot yet thy glory see.
And thou (great spirit) which hers followed hast
[20] So fast, as none can follow thine so fast,
So far, as none can follow thine so far
(And if this flesh did not the passage bar
Had’st reached her), let me wonder at thy flight,
&nbs
p; Which long agone had’st lost the vulgar sight
And now mak’st proud the better eyes, that they
Can see thee less’ned in thine airy way;
So while thou mak’st her soul’s high progress known,
Thou mak’st a noble progress of thine own,
From this world’s carcass having mounted high
[30] To that pure life of immortality,
Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise
That more may not beseem a creature’s praise.
Yet still thou vow’st her more, and every year
Mak’st a new progress while thou wand’rest here.
Still upwards mount, and let thy maker’s praise
Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays.
And since thy muse her head in heaven shrouds,
O, let her never stoop below the clouds.
And if those glorious sainted souls may know
[40] Or what we do, or what we sing below,
Those acts, those songs shall still content them best
Which praise those awful powers that make them blest.
The Second Anniversary. Of the Progress of the Soul
Nothing could make me sooner to confess
The entrance.
That this world had an everlastingness,
Than to consider that a year is run,
Since both this lower world’s and the sun’s sun,
The lustre and the vigour of this all
Did set; ’twere blasphemy to say, did fall.
But as a ship, which hath struck sail doth run,
By force of that force which before it won,
Or as sometimes in a beheaded man,
[10] Though at those two red seas, which freely ran,
One from the trunk, another from the head,
His soul be sailed to her eternal bed,
His eyes will twinkle, and his tongue will roll,
As though he beckoned and called back his soul,
He grasps his hands, and he pulls up his feet,
And seems to reach, and to step forth to meet
His soul. When all these motions which we saw
Are but as ice, which crackles at a thaw,
Or as a lute, which in moist weather rings
[20] Her knell alone by cracking of her strings,
So struggles this dead world, now she is gone,
For there is motion in corruption.
As some days are at the creation named,
Before the sun, the which framed days, was framed,
So after this sun’s set, some show appears,
And orderly vicissitude of years.
Yet a new deluge, and of Lethe flood,
Hath drowned us all, all have forgot all good,
Forgetting her, the main reserve of all.
[30] Yet in this deluge, gross and general,
