John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  But O! the worst are most, they will and can,

  Alas! and do, unto th’ Immaculate,

  Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,

  Measuring self-life’s infinity to 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,

  Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

  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 life-book my name thou enroll.

  Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,

  But made that there, of which, and for which it was;

  Nor can by other means be glorified.

  May then sin’s sleep and death soon from me pass,

  That waked from both, I again risen may

  Salute the last and everlasting day.

  ASCENSION.

  Salute the last and everlasting day,

  Joy at th’ uprising of this Sun, and Son,

  Ye whose true tears, or tribulation

  Have purely wash’d, or burnt your drossy clay.

  Behold, the Highest, parting hence away,

  Lightens the dark clouds, which He treads upon;

  Nor doth He by ascending show alone,

  But first He, and He first enters the way.

  O strong Ram, which hast batter’d heaven for me!

  Mild Lamb, which with Thy Blood hast mark’d the path!

  Bright Torch, which shinest, 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.

  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

  Deliver’d of her, that some Fathers be

  Loth to believe one woman could do this;

  But think these Magdalens were two or three.

  Increase their number, Lady, and their fame;

  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 address’d.

  HOLY SONNETS

  This collection is a series of devotional poems, composed in 1609 and 1610, in a period of great personal distress for Donne. He was facing physical and financial hardship, as well as religious turmoil, as he considered converting to Anglicanism... The Holy Sonnets reflect these various anxieties. Many of the poems were circulated in manuscript form during Donne’s life, though their personal nature evidently reveals Donne’s reluctance to have them published officially.

  The increasing gloominess of Donne’s tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. His early belief in the value of scepticism now gave way to a firm faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne focused his literary career on religious literature. He quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems. The lines of these sermons would come to influence future works of English literature, such as Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which took its title from a passage in Meditation XVII of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island, which took its title from the same source.

  Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, Death Be Not Proud, from which come the famous lines “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death’s Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death’s Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death, yet sees hope in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection.

  Donne commissioned this portrait of himself only a few months before his death. It depicts how he expected to appear when he arose from the grave at the Apocalypse. Once completed, the poet hung the portrait on his wall as a reminder of the ‘transience of life’.

  CONTENTS

  THOU HAST MADE ME, AND SHALL THY WORK DECAY?

  AS DUE BY MANY TITLES I RESIGN

  O! MIGHT THOSE SIGHS AND TEARS RETURN AGAIN

  O, MY BLACK SOUL, NOW THOU ART SUMMONED

  I AM A LITTLE WORLD MADE CUNNINGLY

  THIS IS MY PLAY’S LAST SCENE; HERE HEAVENS APPOINT

  AT THE ROUND EARTH’S IMAGINED CORNERS BLOW

  IF FAITHFUL SOULS BE ALIKE GLORIFIED

  IF POISONOUS MINERALS, AND IF THAT TREE

  DEATH, BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME HAVE CALLED THEE

  SPIT IN MY FACE, YOU JEWS, AND PIERCE MY SIDE

  WHY ARE WE BY ALL CREATURES WAITED ON?

  WHAT IF THIS PRESENT WERE THE WORLD’S LAST NIGHT?

  BATTER MY HEART, THREE-PERSON’D GOD; FOR YOU

  WILT THOU LOVE GOD AS HE THEE?

  FATHER, PART OF HIS DOUBLE INTEREST

  SINCE SHE WHOM I LOVED HATH PAID HER LAST DEBT

  SHOW ME, DEAR CHRIST, THY SPOUSE SO BRIGHT AND CLEAR

  OH, TO VEX ME, CONTRARIES MEET IN ONE

  I.

  THOU HAST MADE ME, AND SHALL THY WORK DECAY?

  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 feeble flesh doth waste

  By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.

  Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee

  By Thy leave I can look, I rise again;

  But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,

  That not one hour myself I can sustain.

  Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art

  And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

  II.

  AS DUE BY MANY TITLES I RESIGN

  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 decay’d

  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 betray’d

  Myself — a temple of Thy Spirit divine.

  Why doth the devil then usurp on me?

  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 shall see

  That Thou lovest mankind well, yet wilt not choose me,

  And Satan hates me, yet is loth to lose me.

  III.

  O! MIGHT THOSE SIGHS AND TEARS RETURN AGAIN

  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 mourn’d 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,

  The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud

  Have the remembrance of past joys, for relief

  Of coming ills. To poor me is allow’d

  No ease; for long, yet vehement grief hath been

  Th’ effect and cause, the punishment and sin.

  IV.

  O, MY BLACK SOUL, NOW THOU ART SUMMONED

  O, my black soul, now thou art summoned

  By sickness, Death’s herald and champion;

  Thou’rt 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 deliver’d from prison,

  But damn’d and haled to execution,

  Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.

  Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;

  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.

  V.

  I AM A LITTLE WORLD MADE CUNNINGLY

  I am a little world made cunningly

  Of elements, and an angelic sprite;

  But black sin hath betray’d 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 land 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 drown’d no more.

  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.

  VI.

  THIS IS MY PLAY’S LAST SCENE; HERE HEAVENS APPOINT

  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,

  And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

  So fall my sins, that all may have their right,

  To where they’re bred and would press me to hell.

  Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,

  For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

  VII.

  AT THE ROUND EARTH’S IMAGINED CORNERS BLOW

  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, dea[r]th, 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;

  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 seal’d my pardon with Thy blood.

  VIII.

  IF FAITHFUL SOULS BE ALIKE GLORIFIED

  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,

  And stile blasphemous conjurers to call

  On Jesu’s 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.

  IX.

  IF POISONOUS MINERALS, AND IF THAT TREE

  If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,

  Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us,

  If lecherous goats, if serpents envious

  Cannot be damn’d, 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?

  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.

  X.

  DEATH, BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME HAVE CALLED THEE

  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 picture[s] 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’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

  And dost 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.

  XI.

  SPIT IN MY FACE, YOU JEWS, AND PIERCE MY SIDE

  Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,

  Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,

  For I have sinn’d, and sinne’, and only He,

  Who could do no iniquity, hath died.

  But by my death can not be satisfied

  My sins, which pass the Jews’ impiety.

  They kill’d once an inglorious man, but I

  Crucify him daily, being now glorified.

  O let me then His strange love still admire;

  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.

  XII.

  WHY ARE WE BY ALL CREATURES WAITED ON?

  Why are we by all creatures waited on?

  Why do the prodigal elements supply

  Life and food to me, being more pure than I,

  Simpler and further from corruption?

  Why brook’s
t thou, ignorant horse, subjection?

  Why dost thou, bull and boar, so sillily

  Dissemble weakness, and by one man’s stroke die,

  Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?

  Weaker I am, woe’s me, and worse than you;

  You have not sinn’d, nor need be timorous.

  But wonder at a greater, 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.

  XIII.

  WHAT IF THIS PRESENT WERE THE WORLD’S LAST NIGHT?

  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 pray’d forgiveness for His foes’ fierce spite?

  No, no; but as in my idolatry

  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 assign’d;

  This beauteous form assures a piteous mind.

  XIV.

  BATTER MY HEART, THREE-PERSON’D GOD; FOR YOU

  Batter my heart, three-person’d 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 usurp’d 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,

  But am betroth’d unto your enemy;

  Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

  Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

  Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

  Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

  XV.

  WILT THOU LOVE GOD AS HE THEE?

  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.