by John Donne
The poisonous tincture of original sin,
So, to the punishments which God doth fling,
Our apprehension contributes the sting.
To us, as to his chickens, he doth cast
Hemlock, and we as men, his hemlock taste.
We do infuse to what he meant for meat,
Corrosiveness, or intense cold or heat.
For, God no such specific poison hath
As kills we know not how; his fiercest wrath
Hath no antipathy, but may be good
At least for physic, if not for our food.
Thus man, that might be his pleasure, is his rod,
And is his devil, that might be his God.
Since then our business is, to rectify
Nature, to what she was, we are led awry
By them, who man to us in little show,
Greater than due, no form we can bestow
On him; for man into himself can draw
All, all his faith can swallow, or reason chaw.
All that is filled, and all that which doth fill,
All the round world, to man is but a pill;
In all it works not, but it is in all
Poisonous, or purgative, or cordial,
For, knowledge kindles calentures in some,
And is to others icy opium.
As brave as true, is that profession then
Which you do use to make; that you know man.
This makes it credible, you have dwelt upon
All worthy books, and now are such a one.
Actions are authors, and of those in you
Your friends find every day a mart of new.
To Mrs M. H. (Mad paper stay)
Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burn
With all those sons whom my brain did create,
At least lie hid with me, till thou return
To rags again, which is thy native state.
What though thou have enough unworthiness
To come unto great place as others do,
That's much; emboldens, pulls, thrusts I confess,
But 'tis not all, thou shouldst be wicked too.
And, that thou canst not learn, or not of me;
Yet thou wilt go; go, since thou goest to her
Who lacks but faults to be a prince, for she,
Truth, whom they dare not pardon, dares prefer.
But when thou com'st to that perplexing eye
Which equally claims love and reverence,
Thou wilt not long dispute it, thou wilt die;
And, having little now, have then no sense.
Yet when her warm redeeming hand, which is
A miracle; and made such to work more,
Doth touch thee, sapless leaf, thou grow'st by this
Her creature; glorified more than before.
Then as a mother which delights to hear
Her early child mis-speak half-uttered words,
Or, because majesty doth never fear
Ill or bold speech, she audience affords.
And then, cold speechless wretch, thou diest again,
And wisely; what discourse is left for thee?
From speech of ill, and her thou must abstain,
And is there any good which is not she?
Yet mayst thou praise her servants, though not her,
And wit, and virtue, and honour her attend,
And since they are but her clothes, thou shalt not err
If thou her shape and beauty and grace commend.
Who knows thy destiny? when thou hast done,
Perchance her cabinet may harbour thee,
Whither all noble ambitious wits do run,
A nest almost as full of good as she.
When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
Were saved before, and did that heaven partake,
When she revolves his papers, mark what show
Of favour, she, alone, to them doth make.
Mark, if to get them, she o'erskip the rest,
Mark, if she read them twice, or kiss the name;
Mark, if she do the same that they protest,
Mark, if she mark whether her woman came.
Mark, if slight things be objected, and o'erblown.
Mark, if her oaths against him be not still
Reserved, and that she grieves she's not her own,
And chides the doctrine that denies freewill.
I bid thee not do this to be my spy;
Nor to make myself her familiar;
But so much I do love her choice, that I
Would fain love him that shall be loved of her.
To the Countess of Bedford at New Year's Tide
This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who (meteor-like, of stuff and form perplexed,
Whose what, and where, in disputation is,)
If I should call me anything, should miss.
I sum the years, and me, and find me not
Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to the new,
That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot,
Nor trust I this with hopes, and yet scarce true
This bravery is, since these times showed me you.
In recompense I would show future times
What you were, and teach them to urge towards such,
Verse embalms virtue; and tombs, or thrones of rhymes,
Preserve frail transitory fame, as much
As spice doth bodies from corrupt air's touch.
Mine are short-lived; the tincture of your name
Creates in them, but dissipates as fast
New spirits; for, strong agents with the same
Force that doth warm and cherish, us do waste;
Kept hot with strong extracts, no bodies last:
So, my verse built of your just praise, might want
Reason and likelihood, the firmest base,
And made of miracle, now faith is scant,
Will vanish soon, and so possess no place,
And you, and it, too much grace might disgrace.
When all (as truth commands assent) confess
All truth of you, yet they will doubt how I
One corn of one low anthill's dust, and less,
Should name, know, or express a thing so high,
And not an inch, measure infinity.
I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,
But leave, lest truth be endangered by my praise,
And turn to God, who knows I think this true,
And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,
To make it good, for, such a praiser prays.
He will best teach you, how you should lay out
His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood,
He will perplex security with doubt,
And clear those doubts, hide from you, and show you good,
And so increase your appetite and food;
He will teach you, that good and bad have not
One latitude in cloisters, and in Court,
Indifferent there the greatest space hath got,
Some pity is not good there, some vain disport,
On this side sin, with that place may comport.
Yet he, as he bounds seas, will fix your hours,
Which pleasure, and delight may not ingress,
And though what none else lost, be truliest yours,
He will make you, what you did not, possess,
By using others', not vice, but weakness.
He will make you speak truths, and credibly,
And make you doubt, that others do not so:
He will provide you keys, and locks, to spy,
And 'scape spies, to good ends, and he will show
What you may not acknowledge, what not know.
For your own conscience, he gives innocence,
But for your fame, a discreet wariness,
And though to 'scape, than to revenge offence
Be better, he shows both, and to repress
Joy, when your state swells, sadness when 'tis less.
From need of tears he will defend your soul,
Or make a rebaptizing of one tear;
He cannot, (that's, he will not) dis-enrol
Your name; and when with active joy we hear
This private gospel, then 'tis our New Year.
To the Countess of Bedford
Honour is so sublime perfection,
And so refined; that when God was alone
And creatureless at first, himself had none;
But as of the elements, these which we tread,
Produce all things with which we'are joyed or fed,
And, those are barren both above our head:
So from low persons doth all honour flow;
Kings, whom they would have honoured, to us show,
And but direct our honour, not bestow.
For when from herbs the pure parts must be won
From gross, by stilling, this is better done
By despised dung, than by the fire or sun.
Care not then, Madam, how low your praisers lie;
In labourers' ballad, oft more piety
God finds, than in Te Deum 's melody.
And, ordnance raised on towers so many mile
Send not their voice, nor last so long a while
As fires from th' earth's low vaults in Sicil Isle.
Should I say I lived darker than were true,
Your radiation can all clouds subdue;
But one, 'tis best light to contemplate you.
You, for whose body God made better clay,
Or took soul's stuff such as shall late decay,
Or such as needs small change at the last day.
This, as an amber drop enwraps a bee,
Covering discovers your quick soul; that we
May in your through-shine front your heart's thoughts see.
You teach (though we learn not) a thing unknown
To our late times, the use of specular stone,
Through which all things within without were shown.
Of such were temples; so and of such you are;
Being and seeming is your equal care,
And virtue's whole sum is but know and dare.
But as our souls of growth and souls of sense
Have birthright of our reason's soul, yet hence
They fly not from that, nor seek precedence:
Nature's first lesson, so, discretion,
Must not grudge zeal a place, nor yet keep none,
Not banish itself, nor religion.
Discretion is a wiseman's soul, and so
Religion is a Christian's, and you know
How these are one, her yea, is not her no.
Nor may we hope to solder still and knit
These two, and dare to break them; nor must wit
Be colleague to religion, but be it.
In those poor types of God (round circles) so
Religions' types, the pieceless centres flow,
And are in all the lines which all ways go.
If either ever wrought in you alone
Or principally, then religion
Wrought your ends, and your ways discretion.
Go thither still, go the same way you went,
Who so would change, do covet or repent;
Neither can reach you, great and innocent.
To the Countess of Bedford
Madam,
Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity, that's you;
Their loves, who have the blessing of your sight,
Grew from their reason, mine from fair faith grew.
But as, although a squint lefthandedness
Be ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand,
So would I, not to increase, but to express
My faith, as I believe, so understand.
Therefore I study you first in your Saints,
Those friends, whom your election glorifies,
Then in your deeds, accesses, and restraints,
And what you read, and what yourself devise.
But soon, the reasons why you are loved by all,
Grow infinite, and so pass reason's reach,
Then back again to implicit faith I fall,
And rest on what the catholic voice doth teach;
That you are good: and not one heretic
Denies it: if he did, yet you are so.
For, rocks, which high-topped and deep-rooted stick,
Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.
In everything there naturally grows
A balsamum to keep it fresh, and new,
If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows;
Your birth and beauty are this balm in you.
But you of learning and religion,
And virtue, and such ingredients, have made
A mithridate, whose operation
Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.
Yet, this is not your physic, but your food,
A diet fit for you; for you are here
The first good angel, since the world's frame stood,
That ever did in woman's shape appear.
Since you are then God's masterpiece, and so
His factor for our loves; do as you do,
Make your return home gracious; and bestow
This life on that; so make one life of two.
For so God help me, I would not miss you there
For all the good which you can do me here.
To the Countess of Bedford
Begun in France but Never Perfected
Though I be dead, and buried, yet I have
(Living in you,) Court enough in my grave,
As oft as there I think myself to be,
So many resurrections waken me.
That thankfulness your favours have begot
In me, embalms me, that I do not rot.
This season as 'tis Easter, as 'tis spring,
Must both to growth and to confession bring
My thoughts disposed unto your influence, so,
These verses bud, so these confessions grow;
First I confess I have to others lent
Your stock, and over prodigally spent
Your treasure, for since I had never known
Virtue or beauty, but as they are grown
In you, I should not think or say they shine,
(So as I have) in any other mine;
Next I confess this my confession,
For, 'tis some fault thus much to touch upon
Your praise to you, where half rights seem too much,
And make your mind's sincere complexion blush.
Next I confess my impenitence, for I
Can scarce repent my first fault, since thereby
Remote low spirits, which shall ne'er read you,
May in less lessons find enough to do,
By studying copies, not originals,
Desunt caetera.
To the Countess of Bedford
To have written then, when you writ, seemed to me
Worst of spiritual vices, simony,
And not to have written then, seems little less
Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness.
In this, my debt I seemed loth to confess,
In that, I seemed to shun beholdingness.
But 'tis not so, nothings, as I am, may
Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.
Such borrow in their payments, and owe more
By having leave to write so, than before.
Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are shown,
May not I yield (not gold) but coal or stone?
Temples were not demolished, though profane:
Here Peter Jove's, there Paul hath Dian's fane.
So whether my hymns you admit or choose,
In me you have hallowed a pagan Muse,
/> And denizened a stranger, who mistaught
By blamers of the times they marred, hath sought
Virtues in corners, which now bravely do
Shine in the world's best part, or all it; you.
I have been told, that virtue in courtiers' hearts
Suffers an ostracism, and departs.
Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go,
But whither, only knowing you, I know;
Your (or you) virtue, two vast uses serves,
It ransoms one sex, and one Court preserves;
There's nothing but your worth, which being true,
Is known to any other, not to you:
And you can never know it; to admit
No knowledge of your worth, is some of it.
But since to you, your praises discords be,
Stoop others' ills to meditate with me.
Oh! to confess we know not what we should,
Is half excuse; we know not what we would.
Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills,
We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills;
As new philosophy arrests the sun,
And bids the passive earth about it run,
So we have dulled our mind, it hath no ends;
Only the body's busy, and pretends;
As dead low earth eclipses and controls
The quick high moon: so doth the body, souls.
In none but us, are such mixed engines found,
As hands of double office: for, the ground
We till with them; and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that's none; he which said, Plough
And look not back, to look up doth allow.
Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys
The soil's disease, and into cockle strays.
Let the mind's thoughts be but transplanted so,
Into the body, and bastardly they grow.
What hate could hurt our bodies like our love?
We, but no foreign tyrants could, remove
These not engraved, but inborn dignities
Caskets of souls; temples, and palaces:
For, bodies shall from death redeemed be,
Souls but preserved, not naturally free.
As men to our prisons, new souls to us are sent,
Which learn vice there, and come in innocent.
First seeds of every creature are in us,
Whate'er the world hath bad, or precious,
Man's body can produce, hence hath it been
That stones, worms, frogs, and snakes in man are seen
But who e'er saw, though nature can work so,
That pearl, or gold, or corn in man did grow?
We' have added to the world Virginia, and sent
