John Donne
Page 31
O strong Ram, which hast battered heaven for me,
Mild Lamb, which with Thy blood hast marked the path,
Bright Torch, which shin’st that I the way may see,
O, with Thy own blood quench Thy own just wrath,
And if Thy Holy Spirit my muse did raise,
Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.
Holy Sonnet 1 (II)
As due by many titles I resign
Myself to Thee, O God; first I was made
By Thee, and for Thee, and when I was decayed
Thy blood bought that, the which before was thine;
I am Thy son, made with Thyself to shine,
Thy servant, whose pains Thou hast still repaid,
Thy sheep, Thine image, and, till I betrayed
Myself, a temple of Thy Spirit divine;
Why doth the Devil then usurp on me?
[10] Why doth he steal, nay ravish, that’s Thy right?
Except Thou rise and for Thine own work fight,
O, I shall soon despair when I do see
That Thou lov’st mankind well, yet wilt’not choose me,
And Satan hates me, yet is loath to lose me.
Holy Sonnet 2 (IV)
O my black soul! Now thou art summoned
By sickness, death’s herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he’s fled,
Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison,
But damned and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be’imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
[10] But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
O make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might,
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.
Holy Sonnet 3 (VI)
This is my play’s last scene, here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage’s last mile; and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span’s last inch, my minute’s latest point,
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body’and soul, and I shall sleep a space,
But my’ever-waking part shall see that face
Whose fear already shakes my every joint;
Then, as my soul to’heaven, her first seat, takes flight,
[10] And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell;
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they’are bred, and would press me, to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the Devil.
Holy Sonnet 4 (VII)
At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
[10] For if above all these my sins abound,
’Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace
When we are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good
As if Thou’hadst sealed my pardon with Thy blood.
Holy Sonnet 5 (IX)
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And mercy being easy and glorious
To God, in His stern wrath why threatens He?
But who am I that dare dispute with Thee?
[10] O God, O, of Thine only worthy blood
And my tears make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin’s black memory.
That Thou remember them, some claim as debt;
I think it mercy, if Thou wilt forget.
Holy Sonnet 6 (X)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
[10] And doth with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Holy Sonnet 7 (XI)
Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet and scoff, scourge and crucify me,
For I have sinned, and sinned, and only He,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died:
But by my death cannot be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews’ impiety;
They killed once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify Him daily, being now glorified.
O let me then His strange love still admire:
[10] Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment.
And Jacob came clothed in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainful intent;
God clothed himself in vile man’s flesh that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.
Holy Sonnet 8 (XII)
Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple and further from corruption?
Why brook’st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Who dost thou, bull and boar, so seelily
Dissemble weakness, and by’one man’s stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow’and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe’is me, and worse than you;
[10] You have not sinned, nor need be timorous.
But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue,
But their Creator, whom sin nor nature tied,
For us, His creatures and His foes, hath died.
Holy Sonnet 9 (XIII)
What if this present were the world’s last night?
Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucified, and tell
Whether His countenance can thee affright,
Tears in His eyes quench the amazing light,
Blood fills His frowns, which from His pierced head fell.
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,
Which prayed forgiveness for His foes’ fierce spite?
No, no; but as in my idolatry
[10] I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty, of pity, foulness only is
A sign of rigour; so I say to thee,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assigned,
This beauteous form assures a piteous mind.
Holy Sonnet 10 (XIV)
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to
mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me,’and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to’another due,
Labour to’admit You, but O, to no end.
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly’I love You, and would be loved fain,
[10] But am betrothed unto Your enemy;
Divorce me,’untie or break that knot again,
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You’enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
Holy Sonnet 11 (XV)
Wilt thou love God, as He thee! Then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His temple in thy breast.
The Father, having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting (for He ne’er begun),
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Coheir to’His glory’and sabbath’s endless rest.
And as a robbed man which by search doth find
[10] His stol’n stuff sold, must lose or buy’it again,
The Son of Glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom He’had made, and Satan stol’n, to’unbind.
’Twas much that man was made like God before,
But that God should be made like man, much more.
Holy Sonnet 12 (XVI)
Father, part of His double interest
Unto Thy kingdom, Thy Son gives to me;
His jointure in the knotty Trinity
He keeps, and gives to me His death’s conquest.
This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath blest,
Was from the world’s beginning slain, and He
Hath made two wills, which with the legacy
Of His and Thy kingdom do Thy sons invest.
Yet such are these laws that men argue yet
[10] Whether a man those statutes can fulfil;
None doth; but Thy all-healing grace and Spirit
Revive again what law and letter kill.
Thy law’s abridgement and Thy last command
Is all but love; O let this last will stand!
Holy Sonnet 13 (I)
Thou hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh;
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
[10] By Thy leave I can look, I rise again,
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour I can myself sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And Thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
Holy Sonnet 14 (III)
O might those sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain;
In mine idolatry what showers of rain
Mine eyes did waste? What griefs my heart did rent?
That sufferance was my sin I now repent;
’Cause I did suffer, I must suffer pain.
Th’hydroptic drunkard and night-scouting thief,
[10] The itchy lecher and self-tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joys for relief
Of coming ills. To (poor) me is allowed
No ease; for long yet vehement grief hath been
Th’effect and cause, the punishment and sin.
Holy Sonnet 15 (V)
I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic sprite,
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My world’s both parts, and (O) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it, if it must be drowned no more;
[10] But, O, it must be burnt. Alas, the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee’and Thy house, which doth in eating heal.
Holy Sonnet 16 (VIII)
If faithful souls be alike glorified
As angels, then my father’s soul doth see,
And adds this even to full felicity,
That valiantly I hell’s wide mouth o’erstride.
But if our minds to these souls be descried
By circumstances and by signs that be
Apparent in us not immediately,
How shall my mind’s white truth by them be tried?
They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,
[10] And vile blasphemous conjurers to call
On Jesus’ name, and pharisaical
Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn,
O pensive soul, to God, for He knows best
Thy grief, for He put it’into my breast.
Holy Sonnet 17 (XVII)
Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt
To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her soul early into heaven ravished,
Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
Here the admiring her my mind did whet
To seek Thee, God; so streams do show the head;
But though I have found Thee, and Thou my thirst hast fed,
A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
But why should I beg more love, when as Thou
[10] Dost woo my soul, for hers off’ring all Thine:
And dost not only fear lest I allow
My love to saints and angels, things divine,
But in Thy tender jealousy dost doubt
Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put Thee out.
Holy Sonnet 18 (XVIII)
Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear.
What, is it she, which on the other shore
Goes richly painted? Or which robbed and tore
Laments and mourns in Germany and here?
Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year?
Is she self-truth and errs? Now new, now’outwore?
Doth she,’and did she, and shall she evermore
On one, on seven, or on no hill appear?
Dwells she with us, or like adventuring knights
[10] First travail we to seek and then make love?
Betray, kind husband, Thy spouse to our sights,
And let mine amorous soul court Thy mild dove,
Who is most true and pleasing to Thee then
When she’is embraced and open to most men.
Holy Sonnet 19 (XIX)
O, to vex me, contraries meet in one;
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit, that when I would not
I change in vows and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot;
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute, as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday, and today
[10] In prayers and flattering speeches I court God;
Tomorrow’I quake with true fear of His rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague, save that here
T
hose are my best days when I shake with fear.
The Cross
Since Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I
His image, th’image of His cross deny?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen altar to despise?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit
That it should bear the sin of scorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How would he fly His pains, who there did die?
From me, no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,
[10] Nor scandal taken, shall this cross withdraw;
It shall not, for it cannot, for the loss
Of this cross were to me another cross.
Better were worse, for no affliction,
No cross, is so extreme as to have none;
Who can blot out the cross, which th’instrument
Of God dew’d on me in the Sacrament?
Who can deny me power and liberty
To stretch mine arms and mine own cross to be?
Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross;
[20] The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss.
Look down, thou spiest out crosses in small things;
Look up, thou see’st birds raised on crossed wings;
All the globe’s frame, and spheres, is nothing else
But the meridians crossing parallels.
Material crosses then good physic be,
But yet spiritual have chief dignity.
These for extracted chemic medicine serve,
And cure much better, and as well preserve;
Then are you your own physic, or need none
[30] When stilled or purged by tribulation.
For when that cross ungrudged unto you sticks,
Then are you to yourself a crucifix.
As, perchance, carvers do not faces make,
But that away, which hid them there, do take.
Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee,
And be His image, or not His, but He.
But as oft alchemists do coiners prove,
So may a self-despising get self-love.
And then as worst surfeits of best meats be,
[40] So is pride issued from humility,