John Donne

by John Donne

  Our tears are due because we are not such.

  Some tears that knot of friends, her death must cost,

  Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.

  Elegy upon the Death of Mrs Boulstred

  Language, thou art too narrow and too weak

  To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speak.

  If we could sigh out accents and weep words,

  Grief wears and lessens, that tears’ breath affords.

  Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are

  (So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar),

  Not that they know not, feel not their estate,

  But extreme sense hath made them desperate.

  Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we be,

  [10] Tyrant, in the fifth and greatest monarchy,

  Was’t that she did possess all hearts before,

  Thou hast killed her, to make thy empire more?

  Knew’st thou some would, that knew her not lament,

  As in a deluge perish th’innocent?

  Was’t not enough to have that palace won,

  But thou must raze it, too, that was undone?

  Had’st thou stayed there, and looked out at her eyes,

  All had adored thee that now from thee flies,

  For they let out more light than they took in;

  [20] They told not when, but did the day begin.

  She was too saphirine and clear for thee;

  Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be.

  Alas, she was too pure, but not too weak;

  Who e’er saw crystal ordinance, but would break?

  And if we be thy conquest, by her fall

  Thou’hast lost thy end, for in her perish all;

  Or if we live, we live but to rebel;

  They know her better now that knew her well.

  If we should vapour out, and pine, and die,

  [30] Since she first went, that were not misery.

  She changed our world with hers; now she is gone,

  Mirth and prosperity is oppression.

  For of all moral virtues she was all,

  The ethics speak of virtues cardinal.

  Her soul was paradise; the cherubim

  Set to keep it was grace, that kept out sin;

  She had no more than let in death, for we

  All reap consumption from one fruitful tree.

  God took her hence, lest some of us should love

  [40] Her, like that plant, Him and His laws above,

  And when we tears, He mercy shed in this,

  To raise our minds to heaven, where now she is,

  Who, if her virtues would have let her stay,

  We’had had a saint, have now a holiday.

  Her heart was that strange bush, where sacred fire,

  Religion, did not consume, but inspire

  Such piety, so chaste use of God’s day

  That what we turn to feast, she turned to pray,

  And did prefigure here in devout taste,

  [50] The rest of her high sabbath, which shall last.

  Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell

  (For she was of that order whence most fell),

  Her body left with us, lest some had said

  She could not die, except they saw her dead.

  For from less virtue and less beauteousness,

  The gentiles framed them gods and goddesses.

  The ravenous earth, that now woos her to be

  Earth too, will be a Lemnia; and the tree

  That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb

  [60] Shall be took up spruce, filled with diamond;

  And we her sad glad friends all bear a part

  Of grief, for all would waste a stoic’s heart.

  Elegy On the Untimely Death of the Incomparable Prince, Henry

  Look to me, faith, and look to my faith, God,

  For both my centres feel this period.

  Of weight, one centre, one of greatness is;

  And reason is that centre, faith is this.

  For into’our reason flow, and there do end,

  All that this natural world doth comprehend;

  Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,

  Shut in for men in one circumference.

  But, for th’enormous greatnesses, which are

  [10] So disproportioned and so angular

  As is God’s essence, place, and providence,

  Where, how, when, what, souls do departed hence –

  These things (eccentric else) on faith do strike;

  Yet, neither all, nor upon all, alike,

  For reason, put t’her best extension,

  Almost meets faith, and makes both centres one.

  And nothing ever came so near to this

  As contemplation of the prince we miss.

  For, all that faith could credit, mankind could,

  [20] Reason still seconded that this prince would.

  If then, least movings of the centre make

  (More than if whole hell belched) the world to shake,

  What must this do, centres distracted so,

  That we see not what to believe or know?

  Was it not well believed, till now, that he,

  Whose reputation was an ecstasy,

  On neighbour states, which knew not why to wake

  Till he discovered what ways he would take;

  For whom what princes angled (when they tried)

  [30] Met a torpedo and were stupefied;

  And others’ studies, how he would be bent,

  Was his great father’s greatest instrument,

  And activist spirit to convey and tie

  This soul of peace, through Christianity?

  Was it not well believed, that he would make

  This general peace th’eternal overtake?

  And that his times might have stretched out so far

  As to touch those of which they emblems are?

  For to confirm this just belief, that now

  [40] The last days came, we saw heaven did allow

  That but from his aspect and exercise,

  In peaceful times, rumours of wars should rise.

  But now this faith is heresy: we must

  Still stay, and vex our great-grandmother, dust.

  O! Is God prodigal? Hath He spent His store

  Of plagues on us? And only now, when more

  Would ease us much, doth He grudge misery,

  And will not let’s enjoy our curse, to die?

  As, for the earth thrown lowest down of all,

  [50] ’Twere an ambition to desire to fall,

  So God, in our desire to die, doth know

  Our plot for ease, in being wretched so.

  Therefore we live, though such a life we have

  As but so many mandrakes on his grave.

  What had his growth and generation done?

  When what we are, his putrefaction

  Sustains in us, earth, which griefs animate;

  Nor hath our world now other soul than that.

  And could grief get so high as heaven, that choir,

  [60] Forgetting this, their new joy would desire

  (With grief to see him) he had stayed below

  To rectify our errors they foreknow.

  Is th’other centre, reason, faster, then?

  Where should we look for that, now we’are not men?

  For, if our reason be our connection

  With causes, now to us there can be none.

  For as, if all the substances were spent,

  ’Twere madness to enquire of accident,

  So is’t to look for reason, he being gone,

  [70] The only subject reason wrought upon.

  If faith have such a chain, whose diverse links

  Industrious man discerneth, as he thinks

  When miracle doth join; and to steal in

  A new link man knows not where to begin;

  At a much deader fault must reason be,r />
  Death having broke off such a link as he.

  But now, for us, with busy proofs to come

  That w’have no reason, would prove we had some;

  So would just lamentations. Therefore, we

  [80] May safelier say, that we are dead, than he.

  So, if our griefs we do not well declare,

  W’have double excuse: he is not dead, we are.

  Yet, would not I die yet, for though I be

  Too narrow to think him, as he is he

  (Our soul’s best baiting and mid-period

  In her long journey of considering God),

  Yet (no dishonour) I can reach him thus:

  As he embraced the fires of love with us.

  Oh, may I (since I live) but see or hear

  [90] That she-intelligence which moved this sphere,

  I pardon fate my life. Whoe’er thou be

  Which hast the noble conscience, thou art she.

  I conjure thee by all the charms he spoke,

  By th’oaths which only you two never broke,

  By all the souls you sighed, that if you see

  These lines, you wish I knew your history.

  So, much as you two mutual heavens were here,

  I were an angel singing what you were.

  Obsequies upon the Lord Harrington, the Last that Died

  To the Countess of Bedford

  Madam

  I have learned by those laws wherein I am a little conversant, that he which bestows any cost upon the dead, obliges him which is dead, but not the heir; I do not therefore send this paper to your Ladyship that you should thank me for it, or think that I thank you in it; your favours and benefits to me are so much above my merits, that they are even above my gratitude, if that were to be judged by words which must express it: But, Madam, since your noble brother’s fortune being yours, the evidences also concerning it are yours. So his virtue being yours, the evidences [10] concerning it belong also to you, of which by your acceptance this may be one piece, in which quality I humbly present it, and as a testimony how entirely your family possesseth

  Your Ladyship’s most humble and thankful servant

  JOHN DONNE

  Fair soul, which wast not only’as all souls be

  Then when thou wast infused, harmony,

  But didst continue so, and now dost bear

  A part in God’s great organ, this whole sphere.

  If looking up to God or down to us,

  Thou find that any way is pervious

  ’Twixt heav’n and earth, and that men’s actions do

  Come to your knowledge and affections too,

  See, and with joy, me to that good degree

  [10] Of goodness grown, that I can study thee,

  And, by these meditations refined,

  Can unapparel and enlarge my mind,

  And so can make by this soft ecstasy

  This place a map of heav’n, myself of thee.

  Thou see’st me here at midnight. Now all rest;

  Time’s dead low water, when all minds divest

  Tomorrow’s business; when the labourers have

  Such rest in bed, that their last churchyard grave,

  Subject to change, will scarce be’a type of this;

  [20] Now when the client, whose last hearing is

  Tomorrow, sleeps; when the condemned man

  (Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them then

  Again by death), although sad watch he keep,

  Doth practise dying by a little sleep,

  Thou at this midnight see’st me, and as soon

  As that sun rises to me, midnight’s noon,

  All the world grows transparent, and I see

  Through all, both church and state, in seeing thee;

  And I discern, by favour of this light,

  [30] Myself, the hardest object of the sight.

  God is the glass; as thou, when thou dost see

  Him who sees all, see’st all concerning thee,

  So, yet unglorified, I comprehend

  All, in these mirrors of thy ways and end.

  Though God be truly our glass through which we see

  All, since the being of all things is He,

  Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive

  Things, in proportion fit by perspective,

  Deeds of good men. For, by their being here,

  [40] Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.

  But where can I affirm, or where arrest

  My thoughts on his deeds? Which shall I call best?

  For fluid virtue cannot be looked on,

  Nor can endure a contemplation.

  As bodies change, and as I do not wear

  Those spirits, humours, blood, I did last year;

  And, as if on a stream I fix mine eye,

  That drop, which I looked on, is presently

  Pushed with more waters from my sight, and gone,

  [50] So in this sea of virtues can no one

  Be’insisted on; virtues, as rivers, pass,

  Yet still remains that virtuous man there was,

  And as if man feeds on man’s flesh, and so

  Part of his body to another owe,

  Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise

  Because God knows where every atom lies,

  So, if one knowledge were made of all those

  Who knew his minutes well, he might dispose

  His virtues into names and ranks; but I

  [60] Should injure nature, virtue, and destiny,

  Should I divide and discontinue so

  Virtue, which did in one entireness grow.

  For as he that should say spirits are framed

  Of all the purest parts that can be named,

  Honours not spirits half so much as he

  Who says they have no parts, but simple be;

  So is’t of virtue, for a point and one

  Are much entirer than a million.

  And had fate meant to have his virtues told,

  [70] It would have let him live to have been old;

  So then, that virtue’in season, and then this

  We might have seen and said, that now he is

  Witty, now wise, now temperate, now just,

  In good short lives, virtues are fain to thrust,

  And to be sure betimes to get a place

  When they would exercise, lack time and space.

  So was it in this person, forced to be

  For lack of time his own epitome;

  So to exhibit in few years as much

  [80] As all the long breathed chronicles can touch.

  As when an angel down from heav’n doth fly,

  Our quick thought cannot keep him company;

  We cannot think, now he is at the sun,

  Now through the moon, now he through th’air doth run;

  Yet, when he’s come, we know he did repair

  To all ’twixt heav’n and earth, sun, moon, and air.

  And as this angel in an instant knows,

  And yet we know, this sudden knowledge grows

  By quick amassing several forms of things

  [90] Which he successively to order brings;

  When they, whose slow-paced, lame thoughts cannot go

  So fast as he, think that he doth not so;

  Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell

  On every syllable, nor stay to spell,

  Yet without doubt he doth distinctly see

  And lay together every A and B,

  So, in short-lived, good men is’not understood

  Each several virtue but the compound good,

  For they all virtues’ paths in that pace tread,

  [100] As angels go and know, and as men read.

  O, why should then these men, these lumps of balm

  Sent hither this world’s tempest to becalm,

  Before by deeds they are diffused and spread,

  And so make us alive, themselves be dead?

  O sou
l, O circle, why so quickly be

  Thy ends, thy birth, thy death, closed up in thee?

  Since one foot of thy compass still was placed

  In heav’n, the other might securely’have paced

  In the most large extent, through every path,

  [110] Which the whole world, or man, the abridgement hath.

  Thou know’st that, though the tropic circles have

  (Yea, and those small ones which the poles engrave)

  All the same roundness, evenness, and all

  The endlessness of th’equinoctial,

  Yet, when we come to measure distances,

  How here, how there, the sun affected is

  When he doth faintly work, and when prevail,

  Only great circles, then, can be our scale.

  So, though thy circle to thyself express

  [120] All, tending to thy endless happiness,

  And we, by our good use of it, may try

  Both how to live well young and how to die,

  Yet, since we must be old, and age endures

  His torrid zone at court, and calentures

  Of hot ambitions, irrelegion’s ice,

  Zeal’s agues, and hydroptic avarice,

  Infirmities, which need the scale of truth

  As well as lust and ignorance of youth,

  Why didst thou not for these give medicines too,

  [130] And by thy doing tell us what to do?

  Though, as small pocket-clocks whose every wheel

  Doth each mis-motion and distemper feel,

  Whose hands get shaking palsies, and whose string

  (His sinews) slackens, and whose soul, the spring,

  Expires or languishes, whose pulse, the fly,

  Either beats not, or beats unevenly,

  Whose voice, the bell, doth rattle, or grow dumb

  Or idle’as men, which to their last hours come,

  If these clocks be not wound, or be wound still,

  [140] Or be not set, or set at every will,

  So, youth is easiest to destruction

  If then we follow all, or follow none.

  Yet, as in great clocks which in steeples chime,

  Placed to inform whole towns to’employ their time,

  An error doth more harm being general,

  When small clocks’ faults only’on the wearer fall.

  So work the faults of age, on which the eye

  Of children, servants, or the state rely.

  Why would’st not thou, then, which hadst such a soul,

  [150] A clock so true as might the sun control,

  And daily hadst from Him, who gave it thee

  Instructions, such as it could never be

  Disordered, stay here as a general

  And great sundial to have set us all?

  O, why would’st thou be any instrument