by John Donne
To this unnatural course? Or why consent
To this, not miracle, but prodigy,
That where the ebbs longer than flowings be,
Virtue, whose flood did with thy youth begin,
[160] Should so much faster ebb out than flow in?
Though her flood was blown in by thy first breath,
All is at once sunk in the whirlpool death,
Which word I would not name, but that I see
Death, else a desert, grown a court by thee.
Now I am sure that if a man would have
Good company, his entry is a grave.
Methinks all cities now but anthills be,
Where, when the several labourers I see
For children, house, provision, taking pain,
[170] They’are all but ants, carrying eggs, straw, and grain;
And churchyards are our cities, unto which
The most repair that are in goodness rich.
There is the best concourse and confluence,
There are the holy suburbs, and from thence
Begins God’s city, New Jerusalem,
Which doth extend her utmost gates to them.
At that gate then, triumphant soul, dost thou
Begin thy triumph. But since laws allow
That at the triumph day the people may,
[180] All that they will ’gainst the triumpher say,
Let me here use that freedom, and express
My grief, though not to make thy triumph less.
By law, to triumphs none admitted be
Till they as magistrates get victory,
Though then, to thy force, all youths’ foes did yield,
Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field,
To which thy rank in this state destined thee,
That there thy councils might get victory,
And so, in that capacity remove
[190] All jealousies ’twixt prince and subjects’ love,
Thou could’st no title to this triumph have;
Thou didst intrude on death, usurp’st a grave.
Then (though victoriously) thou hadst fought as yet
But with thine own affections, with the heat
Of youth’s desires and colds of ignorance;
But till thou should successfully advance
Thine armes ’gainst foreign enemies, which are
Both envy and acclamations popular
(For both these engines equally defeat,
[200] Though by a diverse mine, those which are great),
Till then thy war was but a civil war,
For which, to triumph, none admitted are.
No more are they who (though with good success)
In a defensive war their power express.
Before men triumph, the dominion
Must be enlarged, and not preserved alone;
Why should’st thou then, whose battles were to win
Thyself from those straits nature put thee in,
And to deliver up to God that state
[210] Of which he gave thee the vicariate,
(Which is thy soul and body) as entire
As he, who takes endeavours, doth require,
But didst not stay, t’enlarge his kingdom too,
By making others, what thou didst, to do;
Why should’st thou triumph now, when heav’n no more
Hath got, by getting thee, than’it had before?
For, heav’n and thou, even when thou livedst here,
Of one another in possession were.
But this from triumph most disables thee
[220] That that place which is conquered must be
Left safe from present war, and likely doubt
Of imminent commotions to break out.
And hath he left us so? Or can it be
His territory was no more than he?
No, we are all his charge; the diocese
Of ev’ry exemplar man, the whole world is,
And he was joined in commission
With tutelar angels sent to every one.
But though this freedom, to upbraid and chide
[230] Him who triumphed, were lawful, it was tied
With this, that it might never reference have
Unto the senate, who this triumph gave.
Men might at Pompey jest, but they might not
At that authority by which he got
Leave to triumph before by age he might;
So, though triumphant soul, I dare to write,
Moved with a reverential anger, thus,
That thou so early would’st abandon us,
Yet I am far from daring to dispute
[240] With that great sovereignty, whose absolute
Prerogative hath thus dispensed with thee,
’Gainst nature’s laws, which just impugners be
Of early triumphs. And I (though with pain)
Lessen our loss to magnify thy gain
Of triumph when I say, it was more fit
That all men should lack thee, than thou lack it.
Though then in our time, be not suffered
That testimony of love unto the dead,
To die with them, and in their graves be hid,
[250] As Saxon wives and French soldiery did;
And though in no degree I can express
Grief in great Alexander’s great excess,
Who, at his friend’s death, made whole towns divest
Their walls and bulwarks, which became them best,
Do not, fair soul, this sacrifice refuse,
That in thy grave I do inter my muse,
Who, by my grief, great as thy worth, being cast
Behind hand, yet hath spoke, and spoke her last.
A Hymn to the Saints, and to Marquesse Hamilton
To Sir Robert Carr
Sir,
I presume you rather try what you can do in me, than what I can do in verse; you knew my uttermost when it was best, and even then I did best when I had least truth for my subject. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call, therefore, this paper by what name you will, and, if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, smother it, and be that the sacrifice. If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland, and preached there, I would have embraced your obligation with much alacrity. But, I thank you that you would [10] command me that which I was loather to do, for, even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of
Your poor friend and servant in Christ Jesus,
J. D.
Whether that soul which now comes up to you
Fill any former rank, or make a new,
Whether it take a name named there before,
Or be a name itself, and order more
Than was in heaven till now (for may not he
Be so, if every several angel be
A kind alone); whatever order grow
Greater by him in heaven, we do not so.
One of your orders grows by his access,
[10] But by his loss grow all our orders less.
The name of father, master, friend, the name
Of subject and of prince in one is lame.
Fair mirth is damped and conversation black,
The household widowed, and the garter slack.
The chapel wants an ear, council a tongue,
Story a theme, and music lacks a song.
Blest order that hath him, the loss of him
Gangreened all orders here; all lose a limb.
Never made body such haste to confess
[20] What a soul was. All former comeliness
Fled in a minute when the soul was gone,
And, having lost that beauty, would have none.
So fell our monasteries, in one instant grown
Not to less houses, but to heaps of stone.
So sent this body that fair form it wore
Unto the sphere of forms, and doth (before
His bod
y fill up his sepulchral stone)
Anticipate a resurrection.
For, as in his fame, now his soul is here,
[30] So in the form thereof, his body’s there.
And if (fair soul) not with first innocents
Thy station be, but with the penitents
(And who shall dare to ask then, when I am
Dy’d scarlet in the blood of that pure lamb,
Whether that colour, which is scarlet then,
Were black or white before in th’eyes of men?),
When thou rememb’rest what sins thou didst find
Amongst those many friends now left behind,
And see’st such sinners as they are, with thee
[40] (Got thither by repentance), let it be
Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them clean,
Wish him a David, her a Magdalene.
Epitaph on Himself. To the Countess of Bedford
Madame,
That I might make your cabinet my tomb,
And for my fame, which I love next my soul,
Next to my soul provide the happiest room,
Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.
Others by wills give legacies, but I,
Dying, of you do beg a legacy.
My fortune and my choice this custom break,
When we are speechless grown, to make stones speak,
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
[10] In my grave’s inside see’st what thou art now:
Yet thou’art not yet so good; till death us lay
To ripe and mellow here, we’are stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie;
Whil’st in our souls, sin bred and pampered is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcasses,
So we ourselves miraculously destroy.
Here bodies with less miracle enjoy
Such privileges, enabled here to scale
[20] Heaven, when the trumpet’s air shall them exhale.
Hear this, and mend thyself, and thou mend’st me,
By making me being dead, do good to thee,
And think me well composed, that I could now
A last-sick hour to syllables allow.
Epitaph on Anne Donne
ANNÆ
Fæminæ lectissimæ, dilectissimæque;
Coniugi charissimæ, castissimæque;
Matri piissimæ, Indulgentissimæque;
Xv annis in coniugio transactis,
Vii post xiim partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
[10] Immani febre correptæ,
(Quod hoc saxum farj iussit
Ipse, præ dolore Infans)
Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charæ charus
Cineribus cineres spondet suos
Nouo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos
Iohannes Donne
Sacr: Theolog: Profess:
Secessit
A° xxxiii° Ætat: suæ et sui Iesu
[20] CI DC xvii°
Aug: xv.
TO ANNE
Daughter of [Sir] George More, of Loseley, Gilt/Golden Knight,
Sister of [Sir] Robert More,
Grand-daughter of [Sir] William More,
Great-grand-daughter of [Sir] Christopher More;
A woman most choice/select/read, most beloved/loving/well-read,
A spouse most dear, most chaste,
A mother most loving/merciful/pious/dutiful, most self-sacrificing/indulgent;
Fifteen years in union/covenant completed,
Seven days after the twelfth parturition (of whom seven survive)
[10] By a savage/immense/ravishing fever hurriedly-carried-off/seized
(Wherefore this stone to speak he commanded
Himself, by/beyond grief [made] speechless [Infant/infant])
Her husband (most miserable/wretched to say/designation/assertion) once dear to the dear
His own ashes to these ashes pledges [weds]
[in a] New marriage (may God assent) in this place joining together,
John Donne
Doctor of Theology.
She withdrew
In the 33rd year of age, hers and Jesus’s
[20] 1617[th]
August 15.
Divine Poems
To the Lady Magdalen Herbert, of St Mary Magdalen
Her of your name, whose fair inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo:
An active faith so highly did advance
That she once knew more than the Church did know,
The Resurrection; so much good there is
Delivered of her that some Fathers be
Loath to believe one woman could do this,
But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:
[10] To their devotion, add your innocence;
Take so much of th’example’as of the name,
The latter half; and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest,
Harbour these hymns, to his dear name addressed.
La Corona
1
Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weaved in my low, devout melancholy,
Thou which of good hast, yea art, treasury,
All changing, unchanged, Ancient of Days,
But do not with a vile crown of frail bays
Reward my muse’s white sincerity,
But what Thy thorny crown gained, that give me,
A crown of glory which doth flower always;
The ends crown our works, but Thou crown’st our ends,
[10] For at our end begins our endless rest;
The first, last end, now zealously possessed,
With a strong, sober thirst my soul attends.
’Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
Salvation to all that will is nigh.
2
Annunciation
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That all, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
[20] In prison in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy son and brother,
Whom thou conceiv’st, conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker and thy Father’s mother,
Thou’hast light in dark; and shut’st in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.
3
Nativity
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
[30] Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment;
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough now into our world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath th’inn no room?
Yet lay him in this stall, and from the’Orient,
Stars and wisemen will travel to prevent
Th’effect of Herod’s jealous general doom;
See’st thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
[40] That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother who partakes thy woe.
4
Temple
With His kind mother who partakes thy woe,
Joseph, turn back; see where your child doth sit,
Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
Which Himself on the doctors did bestow;
The Word but lately could not speak, and lo
It suddenly speaks wonders, whence comes it,
That all which was and all which should be writ,
[50] A shallow seeming child should deeply know?
His Godhead was not soul to His manhood,
Nor had time mellowed Him to this ripeness,
But as for one which hath a long task, ’tis good
With the sun to begin His business,
He in His age’s morning thus began
By miracles exceeding power of man.
5
Crucifying
By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious, hate;
[60] In both affections many to Him ran,
But O! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas, and do, unto the’Immaculate,
Whose creature fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life’s infinity to’a span,
Nay to an inch. Lo, where condemned He
Bears His own cross with pain, yet by and by
When it bears Him, He must bear more and die;
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
[70] Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.
6
Resurrection
Moist with one drop of Thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death whom Thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou’enrol,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrefied,
[80] But made that there, of which, and for which, ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin’s sleep, and death’s soon from me pass,
That waked from both I again risen may
Salute the last and everlasting day.
7
Ascension
Salute the last and everlasting day,
Joy at the’uprising of this sun, and Son,
Ye, whose just tears or tribulation
Have purely washed or burnt your drossy clay;
Behold the Highest, parting hence away,
[90] Lightens the dark clouds which He treads upon,
Nor doth He by ascending, show alone,
But first He, and He first, enters the way.
