John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  And thee, feign’d vestal, in worse arms shall see:

  Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,

  And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,

  Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think

  Thou call’st for more,

  And, in false sleep, will from thee shrink:

  And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou

  Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,

  A verier ghost than I.

  What I will say, I will not tell thee now,

  Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,

  I’d rather thou shouldst painfully repent,

  Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

  THE BROKEN HEART.

  He is stark mad, whoever says,

  That he hath been in love an hour,

  Yet not that love so soon decays,

  But that it can ten in less space devour;

  Who will believe me, if I swear

  That I have had the plague a year?

  Who would not laugh at me, if I should say

  I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

  Ah, what a trifle is a heart,

  If once into love’s hands it come!

  All other griefs allow a part

  To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;

  They come to us, but us love draws;

  He swallows us and never chaws;

  By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks do die;

  He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

  If ‘twere not so, what did become

  Of my heart when I first saw thee?

  I brought a heart into the room,

  But from the room I carried none with me.

  If it had gone to thee, I know

  Mine would have taught thine heart to show

  More pity unto me; but Love, alas!

  At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

  Yet nothing can to nothing fall,

  Nor any place be empty quite;

  Therefore I think my breast hath all

  Those pieces still, though they be not unite;

  And now, as broken glasses show

  A hundred lesser faces, so

  My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,

  But after one such love, can love no more.

  A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

  AS virtuous men pass mildly away,

  And whisper to their souls to go,

  Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

  “Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

  So let us melt, and make no noise, 5

  No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

  ‘Twere profanation of our joys

  To tell the laity our love.

  Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears;

  Men reckon what it did, and meant; 10

  But trepidation of the spheres,

  Though greater far, is innocent.

  Dull sublunary lovers’ love

  — Whose soul is sense — cannot admit

  Of absence, ‘cause it doth remove 15

  The thing which elemented it.

  But we by a love so much refined,

  That ourselves know not what it is,

  Inter-assurèd of the mind,

  Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

  Our two souls therefore, which are one,

  Though I must go, endure not yet

  A breach, but an expansion,

  Like gold to aery thinness beat.

  If they be two, they are two so25

  As stiff twin compasses are two;

  Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show

  To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

  And though it in the centre sit,

  Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30

  It leans, and hearkens after it,

  And grows erect, as that comes home.

  Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

  Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;

  Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35

  And makes me end where I begun.

  THE ECSTACY.

  WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

  A pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest

  The violet’s reclining head,

  Sat we two, one another’s best.

  Our hands were firmly cemented

  By a fast balm, which thence did spring;

  Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

  Our eyes upon one double string.

  So to engraft our hands, as yet

  Was all the means to make us one;

  And pictures in our eyes to get

  Was all our propagation.

  As, ‘twixt two equal armies, Fate

  Suspends uncertain victory,

  Our souls — which to advance their state,

  Were gone out — hung ‘twixt her and me.

  And whilst our souls negotiate there,

  We like sepulchral statues lay;

  All day, the same our postures were,

  And we said nothing, all the day.

  If any, so by love refined,

  That he soul’s language understood,

  And by good love were grown all mind,

  Within convenient distance stood,

  He — though he knew not which soul spake,

  Because both meant, both spake the same —

  Might thence a new concoction take,

  And part far purer than he came.

  This ecstasy doth unperplex

  (We said) and tell us what we love;

  We see by this, it was not sex;

  We see, we saw not, what did move:

  But as all several souls contain

  Mixture of things they know not what,

  Love these mix’d souls doth mix again,

  And makes both one, each this, and that.

  A single violet transplant,

  The strength, the colour, and the size —

  All which before was poor and scant —

  Redoubles still, and multiplies.

  When love with one another so

  Interanimates two souls,

  That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

  Defects of loneliness controls.

  We then, who are this new soul, know,

  Of what we are composed, and made,

  For th’ atomies of which we grow

  Are souls, whom no change can invade.

  But, O alas! so long, so far,

  Our bodies why do we forbear?

  They are ours, though not we; we are

  Th’ intelligences, they the spheres.

  We owe them thanks, because they thus

  Did us, to us, at first convey,

  Yielded their senses’ force to us,

  Nor are dross to us, but allay.

  On man heaven’s influence works not so,

  But that it first imprints the air;

  For soul into the soul may flow,

  Though it to body first repair.

  As our blood labours to beget

  Spirits, as like souls as it can;

  Because such fingers need to knit

  That subtle knot, which makes us man;

  So must pure lovers’ souls descend

  To affections, and to faculties,

  Which sense may reach and apprehend,

  Else a great prince in prison lies.

  To our bodies turn we then, that so

  Weak men on love reveal’d may look;

  Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,

  But yet the body is his book.

  And if some lover, such as we,

  Have heard this dialogue of one,

  Let him still mark us, he shall see

  Small change when we’re to bodies gone.

  LOVE’S DEITY.

  I LONG to talk with some old lover’s ghost,

  Who died before the god of love was born.

  I cannot th
ink that he, who then loved most,

  Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.

  But since this god produced a destiny,

  And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,

  I must love her that loves not me.

  Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,

  Nor he in his young godhead practised it.

  But when an even flame two hearts did touch,

  His office was indulgently to fit

  Actives to passives. Correspondency

  Only his subject was; it cannot be

  Love, till I love her, who loves me.

  But every modern god will now extend

  His vast prerogative as far as Jove.

  To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,

  All is the purlieu of the god of love.

  O! were we waken’d by this tyranny

  To ungod this child again, it could not be

  I should love her, who loves not me.

  Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,

  As though I felt the worst that love could do?

  Love might make me leave loving, or might try

  A deeper plague, to make her love me too;

  Which, since she loves before, I’m loth to see.

  Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,

  If she whom I love, should love me.

  LOVE’S DIET.

  TO what a cumbersome unwieldiness

  And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,

  But that I did, to make it less,

  And keep it in proportion,

  Give it a diet, made it feed upon

  That which love worst endures, discretion

  Above one sigh a day I allow’d him not,

  Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;

  And if sometimes by stealth he got

  A she sigh from my mistress’ heart,

  And thought to feast upon that, I let him see

  ‘Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.

  If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so

  With scorn and shame, that him it nourish’d not;

  If he suck’d hers, I let him know

  ‘Twas not a tear which he had got;

  His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;

  For eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

  Whatever he would dictate I writ that,

  But burnt her letters when she writ to me;

  And if that favour made him fat,

  I said, “If any title be

  Convey’d by this, ah! what doth it avail,

  To be the fortieth name in an entail?”

  Thus I reclaim’d my buzzard love, to fly

  At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.

  Now negligent of sports I lie,

  And now, as other falconers use,

  I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep;

  And the game kill’d, or lost, go talk or sleep.

  THE WILL.

  BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

  Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath

  Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

  If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;

  My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;

  To women, or the sea, my tears;

  Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore

  By making me serve her who had twenty more,

  That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

  My constancy I to the planets give;

  My truth to them who at the court do live;

  My ingenuity and openness,

  To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;

  My silence to any, who abroad hath been;

  My money to a Capuchin:

  Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me

  To love there, where no love received can be,

  Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

  My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

  All my good works unto the Schismatics

  Of Amsterdam; my best civility

  And courtship to an University;

  My modesty I give to soldiers bare;

  My patience let gamesters share:

  Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me

  Love her that holds my love disparity,

  Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

  I give my reputation to those

  Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

  To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

  My sickness to physicians, or excess;

  To nature all that I in rhyme have writ;

  And to my company my wit:

  Thou, Love, by making me adore

  Her, who begot this love in me before,

  Taught’st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

  To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,

  I give my physic books; my written rolls

  Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

  My brazen medals unto them which live

  In want of bread; to them which pass among

  All foreigners, mine English tongue:

  Though, Love, by making me love one

  Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

  For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

  Therefore I’ll give no more, but I’ll undo

  The world by dying, because love dies too.

  Then all your beauties will be no more worth

  Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth;

  And all your graces no more use shall have,

  Than a sun-dial in a grave:

  Thou, Love, taught’st me by making me

  Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

  To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

  THE FUNERAL.

  WHOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm,

  Nor question much,

  That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm;

  The mystery, the sign, you must not touch;

  For ‘tis my outward soul,

  Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone,

  Will leave this to control

  And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

  For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall

  Through every part

  Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,

  Those hairs which upward grew, and strength and art

  Have from a better brain,

  Can better do ‘t; except she meant that I

  By this should know my pain,

  As prisoners then are manacled, when they’re condemn’d to die.

  Whate’er she meant by it, bury it with me,

  For since I am

  Love’s martyr, it might breed idolatry,

  If into other hands these relics came.

  As ‘twas humility

  To afford to it all that a soul can do,

  So ‘tis some bravery,

  That since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.

  THE BLOSSOM.

  LITTLE think’st thou, poor flower,

  Whom I’ve watch’d six or seven days,

  And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour

  Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise,

  And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough,

  Little think’st thou,

  That it will freeze anon, and that I shall

  To-morrow find thee fallen, or not at all.

  Little think’st thou, poor heart,

  That labourest yet to nestle thee,

  And think’st by hovering here to get a part

  In a forbidden or forbidding tree,

  And hopest her stiffness by long siege to bow,

  Little think’st thou

  That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake,

  Must with the sun and me a journey take.
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  But thou, which lovest to be

  Subtle to plague thyself, wilt say,

  Alas! if you must go, what’s that to me?

  Here lies my business, and here I will stay

  You go to friends, whose love and means present

  Various content

  To your eyes, ears, and taste, and every part;

  If then your body go, what need your heart?

  Well then, stay here; but know,

  When thou hast stay’d and done thy most,

  A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,

  Is to a woman but a kind of ghost.

  How shall she know my heart; or having none,

  Know thee for one?

  Practice may make her know some other part;

  But take my word, she doth not know a heart.

  Meet me in London, then,

  Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see

  Me fresher and more fat, by being with men,

  Than if I had stay’d still with her and thee.

  For God’s sake, if you can, be you so too;

  I will give you

  There to another friend, whom we shall find

  As glad to have my body as my mind.

  THE PRIMROSE

  BEING AT MONTGOMERY CASTLE UPON THE HILL, ON WHICH IT IS SITUATE.

  UPON this Primrose hill,

  Where, if heaven would distil

  A shower of rain, each several drop might go

  To his own primrose, and grow manna so;

  And where their form, and their infinity

  Make a terrestrial galaxy,

  As the small stars do in the sky;

  I walk to find a true love; and I see

  That ‘tis not a mere woman, that is she,

  But must or more or less than woman be.

  Yet know I not, which flower

  I wish; a six, or four;

  For should my true-love less than woman be,

  She were scarce anything; and then, should she

  Be more than woman, she would get above

  All thought of sex, and think to move

  My heart to study her, and not to love.

  Both these were monsters; since there must reside

  Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,

  She were by art, than nature falsified.

  Live, primrose, then, and thrive

  With thy true number five;

  And, woman, whom this flower doth represent,

  With this mysterious number be content;

  Ten is the farthest number; if half ten

  Belongs to each woman, then

  Each woman may take half us men;

  Or — if this will not serve their turn — since all

  Numbers are odd, or even, and they fall

  First into five, women may take us all.

  THE RELIC.

  WHEN my grave is broke up again

  Some second guest to entertain,