by John Donne
Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative.
Here statesmen — or of them, they which can read —
May of their occupation find the grounds;
Love, and their art, alike it deadly wounds,
If to consider what ‘tis, one proceed.
In both they do excel
Who the present govern well,
Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell;
In this thy book, such will there something see,
As in the Bible some can find out alchemy.
Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll study thee,
As he removes far off, that great heights takes;
How great love is, presence best trial makes,
But absence tries how long this love will be;
To take a latitude
Sun, or stars, are fitliest view’d
At their brightest, but to conclude
Of longitudes, what other way have we,
But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be?
COMMUNITY.
GOOD we must love, and must hate ill,
For ill is ill, and good good still;
But there are things indifferent,
Which wee may neither hate, nor love,
But one, and then another prove,
As we shall find our fancy bent.
If then at first wise Nature had
Made women either good or bad,
Then some wee might hate, and some choose;
But since she did them so create,
That we may neither love, nor hate,
Only this rests, all all may use.
If they were good it would be seen;
Good is as visible as green,
And to all eyes itself betrays.
If they were bad, they could not last;
Bad doth itself, and others waste;
So they deserve nor blame, nor praise.
But they are ours as fruits are ours;
He that but tastes, he that devours,
And he that leaves all, doth as well;
Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat;
And when he hath the kernel eat,
Who doth not fling away the shell?
LOVE’S GROWTH.
I SCARCE believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mix’d of all stuffs, vexing soul, or sense,
And of the sun his active vigour borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their Muse;
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;
As in the firmament
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love’s awakened root do bud out now.
If, as in water stirr’d more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate this spring’s increase.
LOVE’S EXCHANGE.
LOVE, any devil else but you
Would for a given soul give something too.
At court your fellows every day
Give th’ art of rhyming, huntsmanship, or play,
For them which were their own before;
Only I have nothing, which gave more,
But am, alas! by being lowly, lower.
I ask no dispensation now,
To falsify a tear, or sigh, or vow;
I do not sue from thee to draw
A non obstante on nature’s law;
These are prerogatives, they inhere
In thee and thine; none should forswear
Except that he Love’s minion were.
Give me thy weakness, make me blind,
Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and mind;
Love, let me never know that this
Is love, or, that love childish is;
Let me not know that others know
That she knows my paines, lest that so
A tender shame make me mine own new woe.
If thou give nothing, yet thou ‘rt just,
Because I would not thy first motions trust;
Small towns which stand stiff, till great shot
Enforce them, by war’s law condition not;
Such in Love’s warfare is my case;
I may not article for grace,
Having put Love at last to show this face.
This face, by which he could command
And change th’ idolatry of any land,
This face, which, wheresoe’er it comes,
Can call vow’d men from cloisters, dead from tombs,
And melt both poles at once, and store
Deserts with cities, and make more
Mines in the earth, than quarries were before.
For this Love is enraged with me,
Yet kills not; if I must example be
To future rebels, if th’ unborn
Must learn by my being cut up and torn,
Kill, and dissect me, Love; for this
Torture against thine own end is;
Rack’d carcasses make ill anatomies.
CONFINED LOVE.
Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,
If on womankind he might his anger wreak;
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?
Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose;
But we are made worse than those.
Who e’er rigg’d fair ships to lie in harbours,
And not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?
Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,
Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?
Good is not good, unless
A thousand it possess,
But doth waste with greediness.
THE DREAM.
DEAR love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream;
It was a theme
For reason, much too strong for fantasy.
Therefore thou waked’st me wisely; yet
My dream thou brokest not, but continued’st it.
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories;
Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best,
Not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest.
As lightning, or a taper’s light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me;
Yet I thought thee
— For thou lovest truth — an angel, at first sight;
But when I saw thou saw’st my heart,
And knew’st my thoughts beyond an angel’s art,
When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when
Excess of joy would wake me, and came
st then,
I must confess, it could not choose but be
Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.
Coming and staying show’d thee, thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now
Thou art not thou.
That love is weak where fear’s as strong as he;
‘Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,
If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have;
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with me;
Thou camest to kindle, go’st to come; then I
Will dream that hope again, but else would die.
A VALEDICTION OF WEEPING.
LET me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth.
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more;
When a tear falls, that thou fall’st which it bore;
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.
On a round ball
A workman, that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.
So doth each tear,
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolvèd so.
O! more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere;
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea, what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find
To do me more harm than it purposeth:
Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,
Whoe’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death.
LOVE’S ALCHEMY.
Some that have deeper digg’d love’s mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie.
I have loved, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery.
O! ‘tis imposture all;
And as no chemic yet th’ elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer’s night.
Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,
Shall we for this vain bubble’s shadow pay?
Ends love in this, that my man
Can be as happy as I can, if he can
Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom’s play?
That loving wretch that swears,
‘Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,
Which he in her angelic finds,
Would swear as justly, that he hears,
In that day’s rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.
Hope not for mind in women; at their best,
Sweetness and wit they are, but mummy, possess’d.
THE CURSE.
WHOEVER guesses, thinks, or dreams, he knows
Who is my mistress, wither by this curse;
Him, only for his purse
May some dull whore to love dispose,
And then yield unto all that are his foes;
May he be scorn’d by one, whom all else scorn,
Forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn,
With fear of missing, shame of getting, torn.
Madness his sorrow, gout his cramps, may he
Make, by but thinking who hath made him such;
And may he feel no touch
Of conscience, but of fame, and be
Anguish’d, not that ‘twas sin, but that ‘twas she;
Or may he for her virtue reverence
One that hates him only for impotence,
And equal traitors be she and his sense.
May he dream treason, and believe that he
Meant to perform it, and confesses, and die,
And no record tell why;
His sons, which none of his may be,
Inherit nothing but his infamy;
Or may he so long parasites have fed,
That he would fain be theirs whom he hath bred,
And at the last be circumcised for bread.
The venom of all stepdames, gamesters’ gall,
What tyrants and their subjects interwish,
What plants, mine, beasts, fowl, fish,
Can contribute, all ill, which all
Prophets or poets spake, and all which shall
Be annex’d in schedules unto this by me,
Fall on that man; For if it be a she
Nature beforehand hath out-cursèd me.
THE MESSAGE.
SEND home my long stray’d eyes to me,
Which, O! too long have dwelt on thee;
Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,
Such forced fashions,
And false passions,
That they be
Made by thee
Fit for no good sight, keep them still.
Send home my harmless heart again,
Which no unworthy thought could stain;
Which if it be taught by thine
To make jestings
Of protestings,
And break both
Word and oath,
Keep it, for then ‘tis none of mine.
Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know, and see thy lies,
And may laugh and joy, when thou
Art in anguish
And dost languish
For some one
That will none,
Or prove as false as thou art now.
A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY’S DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.
‘TIS the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world’s whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed’s-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death — things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death — which word wrongs her —
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
> As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night’s festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year’s and the day’s deep midnight is.
WITCHCRAFT BY A PICTURE.
I FIX mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye;
My picture drown’d in a transparent tear,
When I look lower I espy;
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and marr’d, to kill,
How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?
But now I’ve drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And though thou pour more, I’ll depart;
My picture vanished, vanish all fears
That I can be endamaged by that art;
Though thou retain of me
One picture more, yet that will be,
Being in thine own heart, from all malice free.
THE BAIT.
COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whisp’ring run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there th’ enamour’d fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark’nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes’ wand’ring eyes.
For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas! is wiser far than I.
THE APPARITION.
WHEN by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
