John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  Which be envied than pitied: therefore I,

  Because I wish thee best, do thee envy:

  O wouldst thou, by like reason, pity me,

  But care not for me, I, that ever was

  In Nature's, and in Fortune's gifts, (alas,

  Before thy grace got in the Muses' school)

  A monster and a beggar, am now a fool.

  Oh how I grieve, that late born modesty

  Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts,

  That men may not themselves, their own good parts

  Extol, without suspect of surquedry,

  For, but thyself, no subject can be found

  Worthy thy quill, nor any quill resound

  Thy worth but thine; how good it were to see

  A poem in thy praise, and writ by thee.

  Now if this song be too harsh for rhyme, yet, as

  The painters' bad god made a good devil,

  'Twill be good prose, although the verse be evil,

  If thou forget the rhyme as thou dost pass.

  Then write, that I may follow, and so be

  Thy debtor, thy echo, thy foil, thy zany.

  I shall be thought, if mine like thine I shape,

  All the world's lion, though I be thy ape.

  To Mr T. W.

  At once, from hence, my lines and I depart,

  I to my soft still walks, they to my heart;

  I to the nurse, they to the child of art;

  Yet as a firm house, though the carpenter

  Perish, doth stand: as an ambassador

  Lies safe, howe'er his king be in danger:

  So, though I languish, pressed with melancholy,

  My verse, the strict map of my misery,

  Shall live to see that, for whose want I die.

  Therefore I envy them, and do repent,

  That from unhappy me, things happy are sent;

  Yet as a picture, or bare sacrament,

  Accept these lines, and if in them there be

  Merit of love, bestow that love on me.

  To Mr T. W.

  Haste thee harsh verse as fast as thy lame measure

  Will give thee leave, to him, my pain and pleasure.

  I have given thee, and yet thou art too weak,

  Feet, and a reasoning soul and tongue to speak.

  Plead for me, and so by thine and my labour,

  I am thy Creator, thou my Saviour.

  Tell him, all questions, which men have defended

  Both of the place and pains of hell, are ended;

  And 'tis decreed our hell is but privation

  Of him, at least in this earth's habitation:

  And 'tis where I am, where in every street

  Infections follow, overtake, and meet:

  Live I or die, by you my love is sent,

  And you'are my pawns, or else my testament.

  To Mr T. W.

  Pregnant again with th' old twins hope, and fear,

  Oft have I asked for thee, both how and where

  Thou wert, and what my hopes of letters were;

  As in the streets sly beggars narrowly

  Watch motions of the giver's hand and eye,

  And evermore conceive some hope thereby.

  And now thy alms is given, thy letter is read,

  The body risen again, the which was dead,

  And thy poor starveling bountifully fed.

  After this banquet my soul doth say grace,

  And praise thee for it, and zealously embrace

  Thy love, though I think thy love in this case

  To be as gluttons, which say 'midst their meat,

  They love that best of which they most do eat.

  To Sir Henry Goodyer

  Who makes the past, a pattern for next year,

  Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads,

  Seen things, he sees again, heard things doth hear,

  And makes his life but like a pair of beads.

  A palace, when 'tis that, which it should be,

  Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays:

  But he, which dwells there, is not so; for he

  Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise;

  So had your body her morning, hath her noon,

  And shall not better; her next change is night:

  But her fair larger guest, to whom sun and moon

  Are sparks, and short-lived, claims another right.

  The noble soul by age grows lustier,

  Her appetite and her digestion mend,

  We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her

  With women's milk, and pap unto the end.

  Provide you manlier diet; you have seen

  All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts;

  But ask your garners if you have not been

  In harvests, too indulgent to your sports.

  Would you redeem it? then yourself transplant

  A while from hence. Perchance outlandish ground

  Bears no more wit, than ours, but yet more scant

  Are those diversions there, which here abound.

  To be a stranger hath that benefit,

  We can beginnings, but not habits choke.

  Go; whither? Hence; you get, if you forget;

  New faults, till they prescribe in us, are smoke.

  Our soul, whose country's heaven, and God her father,

  Into this world, corruption's sink, is sent,

  Yet, so much in her travail she doth gather,

  That she returns home, wiser than she went;

  It pays you well, if it teach you to spare,

  And make you ashamed, to make your hawk's praise yours,

  Which when herself she lessens in the air,

  You then first say, that high enough she towers.

  However, keep the lively taste you hold

  Of God, love him as now, but fear him more,

  And in your afternoons think what you told

  And promised him, at morning prayer before.

  Let falsehood like a discord anger you,

  Else be not froward. But why do I touch

  Things, of which none is in your practice new,

  And fables, or fruit-trenchers teach as much;

  But thus I make you keep your promise Sir,

  Riding I had you, though you still stayed there,

  And in these thoughts, although you never stir,

  You came with me to Mitcham, and are here.

  A Letter Written by Sir H. G. and J. D. alternis vicibus

  Since every tree begins to blossom now

  Perfuming and enamelling each bough,

  Hearts should as well as they, some fruits allow.

  For since one old poor sun serves all the rest,

  You several suns that warm, and light each breast

  Do by that influence all your thoughts digest.

  And that you two may so your virtues move,

  On better matter than beams from above,

  Thus our twin'd souls send forth these buds of love.

  As in devotions men join both their hands,

  We make ours do one act, to seal the bands,

  By which we enthral ourselves to your commands.

  And each for other's faith and zeal stand bound;

  As safe as spirits are from any wound,

  So free from impure thoughts they shall be found.

  Admit our magic then by which we do

  Make you appear to us, and us to you,

  Supplying all the Muses in you two.

  We do consider no flower that is sweet,

  But we your breath in that exhaling meet,

  And as true types of you, them humbly greet.

  Here in our nightingales, we hear you sing,

  Who so do make the whole year through a spring,

  And save us from the fear of autumn's sting.

  In Anker's calm face we your smoothness see,

  Your minds unmingled, and as clear as she

>   That keeps untouched her first virginity.

  Did all St Edith' Nuns descend again

  To honour Polesworth with their cloistered train,

  Compared with you each would confess some stain.

  Or should we more bleed out our thoughts in ink,

  No paper (though it would be glad to drink

  Those drops) could comprehend what we do think.

  For 'twere in us ambition to write

  So, that because we two, you two unite,

  Our letter should as you, be infinite.

  To Sir Henry Wotton

  Here's no more news, than virtue, I may as well

  Tell you Cadiz' or Saint Michael's tale for news, as tell

  That vice doth here habitually dwell.

  Yet, as to get stomachs, we walk up and down,

  And toil to sweeten rest, so, may God frown,

  If, but to loathe both, I haunt Court, or Town.

  For here no one is from th' extremity

  Of vice, by any other reason free,

  But that the next to him, still, is worse than he.

  In this world's warfare, they whom rugged Fate,

  (God's commissary,) doth so throughly hate,

  As in the Court's squadron to marshal their state

  If they stand armed with silly honesty,

  With wishing prayers, and neat integrity,

  Like Indian 'gainst Spanish hosts they be.

  Suspicious boldness to this place belongs,

  And to have as many ears as all have tongues;

  Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs.

  Believe me Sir, in my youth's giddiest days,

  When to be like the Court, was a play's praise,

  Plays were not so like Courts, as Courts are like plays.

  Then let us at these mimic antics jest,

  Whose deepest projects, and egregious gests

  Are but dull morals of a game at chests.

  But now 'tis incongruity to smile,

  Therefore I end; and bid farewell a while,

  At Court, though from Court, were the better style.

  To Sir Henry Wotton

  Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;

  For, thus friends absent speak. This ease controls

  The tediousness of my life: but for these

  I could ideate nothing, which could please,

  But I should wither in one day, and pass

  To a bottle of hay, that am a lock of grass.

  Life is a voyage, and in our life's ways

  Countries, courts, towns are rocks, or remoras;

  They break or stop all ships, yet our state's such,

  That though than pitch they stain worse, we must touch.

  If in the furnace of the even line,

  Or under th' adverse icy poles thou pine,

  Thou know'st two temperate regions girded in,

  Dwell there: But Oh, what refuge canst thou win

  Parched in the Court, and in the country frozen?

  Shall cities, built of both extremes, be chosen?

  Can dung and garlic be a perfume? or can

  A scorpion and torpedo cure a man?

  Cities are worst of all three; of all three

  (O knotty riddle) each is worst equally.

  Cities are sepulchres; they who dwell there

  Are carcases, as if no such there were.

  And Courts are theatres, where some men play

  Princes, some slaves, all to one end, and of one clay.

  The country is a desert, where no good,

  Gained (as habits, not born,) is understood.

  There men become beasts, and prone to more evils;

  In cities blocks, and in a lewd Court, devils.

  As in the first Chaos confusedly

  Each element's qualities were in the other three;

  So pride, lust, covetize, being several

  To these three places, yet all are in all,

  And mingled thus, their issue incestuous.

  Falsehood is denizened. Virtue is barbarous.

  Let no man say there, »Virtue's flinty wall

  Shall lock vice in me, I'll do none, but know all.«

  Men are sponges, which to pour out, receive,

  Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.

  For in best understandings, sin began,

  Angels sinned first, then devils, and then man.

  Only perchance beasts sin not; wretched we

  Are beasts in all, but white integrity.

  I think if men, which in these places live

  Durst look for themselves, and themselves retrieve,

  They would like strangers greet themselves, seeing then

  Utopian youth, grown old Italian.

  Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;

  Inn anywhere, continuance maketh hell.

  And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,

  Carrying his own house still, still is at home,

  Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,

  Be thine own palace, or the world 's thy goal.

  And in the world's sea, do not like cork sleep

  Upon the water's face; nor in the deep

  Sink like a lead without a line: but as

  Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,

  Nor making sound, so closely thy course go,

  Let men dispute, whether thou breathe, or no.

  Only in this one thing, be no Galenist: to make

  Courts' hot ambitions wholesome, do not take

  A dram of country's dullness; do not add

  Correctives, but as chemics, purge the bad.

  But, Sir, I advise not you, I rather do

  Say o'er those lessons, which I learned of you:

  Whom, free from German schisms, and lightness

  Of France, and fair Italy's faithlessness,

  Having from these sucked all they had of worth,

  And brought home that faith, which you carried forth,

  I throughly love. But if myself, I have won

  To know my rules, I have, and you have

  Donne.

  To Sir Henry Wotton, at his going Ambassador to Venice

  After those reverend papers, whose soul is

  Our good and great King's loved hand and feared name,

  By which to you he derives much of his,

  And (how he may) makes you almost the same,

  A taper of his torch, a copy writ

  From his original, and a fair beam

  Of the same warm, and dazzling sun, though it

  Must in another sphere his virtue stream:

  After those learned papers which your hand

  Hath stored with notes of use and pleasure too,

  From which rich treasury you may command

  Fit matter whether you will write or do:

  After those loving papers, where friends send

  With glad grief, to your sea-ward steps, farewell,

  Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend

  To heaven in troops at a good man's passing bell:

  Admit this honest paper, and allow

  It such an audience as yourself would ask;

  What you must say at Venice this means now,

  And hath for nature, what you have for task.

  To swear much love, not to be changed before

  Honour alone will to your fortune fit;

  Nor shall I then honour your fortune, more

  Than I have done your honour wanting it.

  But 'tis an easier load (though both oppress)

  To want, than govern greatness, for we are

  In that, our own and only business,

  In this, we must for others' vices care;

  'Tis therefore well your spirits now are placed

  In their last furnace, in activity;

  Which fits them (schools and Courts and wars o'erpast)

  To touch and test in any best degree.

  For me, (i
f there be such a thing as I)

  Fortune (if there be such a thing as she)

  Spies that I bear so well her tyranny,

  That she thinks nothing else so fit for me;

  But though she part us, to hear my oft prayers

  For your increase, God is as near me here;

  And to send you what I shall beg, his stairs

  In length and ease are alike everywhere.

  H. W. in Hibernia Belligeranti

  Went you to conquer? and have so much lost

  Yourself, that what in you was best and most,

  Respective friendship, should so quickly die?

  In public gain my share' is not such that I

  Would lose your love for Ireland: better cheap

  I pardon death (who though he do not reap

  Yet gleans he many of our friends away)

  Than that your waking mind should be a prey

  To lethargies. Let shot, and bogs, and skeins

  With bodies deal, as fate bids or restrains;

  Ere sicknesses attack, young death is best,

  Who pays before his death doth 'scape arrest.

  Let not your soul (at first with graces filled,

  And since, and thorough crooked limbecs, stilled

  In many schools and Courts, which quicken it,)

  Itself unto the Irish negligence submit.

  I ask not laboured letters which should wear

  Long papers out: nor letters which should fear

  Dishonest carriage; or a seer's art,

  Nor such as from the brain come, but the heart.

  To Sir Edward Herbert, at Juliers

  Man is a lump, where all beasts kneaded be,

  Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree;

  The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar,

  Is sport to others, and a theatre,

  Nor 'scapes he so, but is himself their prey;

  All which was man in him, is eat away,

  And now his beasts on one another feed,

  Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed;

  How happy is he, which hath due place assigned

  To his beasts, and disafforested his mind!

  Empaled himself to keep them out, not in;

  Can sow, and dares trust corn, where they have been;

  Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast,

  And is not ass himself to all the rest.

  Else, man not only is the herd of swine,

  But he's those devils too, which did incline

  Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse:

  For man can add weight to heaven's heaviest curse.

  As souls (they say) by our first touch, take in