by John Donne
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep;
Who—were Death dead—by roes of living sand 15
Might sponge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds’, heaven’s choristers, organic throats;
Which, if they did not die, might seem to be
A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy. 20
O strong and long-lived death, how earnest thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest,
All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist.
How could I think thee nothing, that see now 25
In all this All nothing else is, but thou?
Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death. 30
And though thou be’st, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaim’d by God, that thou must lay
All that thou kill’st at His feet, yet doth He
Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee.
And of those few now thou hast overthrown 35
One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own.
She was more storeys high; hopeless to come
To her soul, thou hast offer’d at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court;
But thou hast both of captain miss’d and fort. 40
As houses fall not, though the kings remove,
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
Death gets ’twixt souls and bodies such a place
As sin insinuates ’twixt just men and grace;
Both work a separation, no divorce. 45
Her soul is gone to usher up her corse,
Which shall be almost another soul—for there
Bodies are purer than best souls are here.
Because in her, her virtues did outgo
Her years, would’st thou, O emulous death, do so, 50
And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost
Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?
What though thou found’st her proof ’gainst sins of youth?
O, every age a diverse sin pursueth.
Thou should’st have stayed, and taken better hold. 55
Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old,
She might have proved; and such devotion
Might once have stray’d to superstition.
If all her virtues must have grown, yet might
Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight. 60
Had she persever’d just, there would have been
Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin.
Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign
To sociableness, a name profane,
Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that, 65
By wishing, though they never told her what.
Thus mightst thou have slain more souls had’st thou not cross’d
Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost.
Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,
Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone. 70
But we may ’scape that sin, yet weep as much;
Our tears are due because we are not such.
Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.
ELEGY ON MISTRESS BOULSTRED (II)
DEATH, be not proud, thy hand gave not this blow;
Sin was her captive, whence thy power doth flow;
The executioner of wrath thou art,
But to destroy the just is not thy part.
Thy coming, terror, anguish, grief denounces; 5
Her happy state, courage, ease, joy pronounces.
From out the crystal palace of her breast,
The clearer soul was call’d to endless rest
—Not by the thundering voice, wherewith God threats,
But as with crowned saints in heaven He treats— 10
And, waited on by angels, home was brought,
To joy that it through many dangers sought.
The key of mercy gently did unlock
The doors ’twixt heaven and it, when life did knock.
Nor boast the fairest frame was made thy prey, 15
Because to mortal eyes it did decay.
A better witness than thou art, assures,
That though dissolved, it yet a space endures;
No dram thereof shall want or loss sustain,
When her best soul inhabits it again. 20
Go then to people cursed before they were;
Their souls in triumph to thy conquest bear.
Glory not thou thyself in these hot tears
Which our face, not for her, but our harm wears;
The mourning livery given by grace, not thee, 25
Which wills our souls in these streams washed should be;
And on our hearts, her memory’s best tomb,
In this her epitaph doth write thy doom.
Blind were those eyes, saw not how bright did shine
Through flesh’s misty veil those beams divine; 30
Deaf were the ears, not charm’d with that sweet sound
Which did i’ th’ spirit’s instructed voice abound;
Of flint the conscience, did not yield and melt,
At what in her last act it saw and felt.
Weep not, nor grudge then to have lost her sight, 35
Taught thus, our after stay’s but a short night;
But by all souls not by corruption choked
Let in high raisèd notes that power be invoked,
Calm the rough seas by which she sails to rest
From sorrows here to a kingdom ever blest. 40
And teach this hymn of her with joy, and sing,
‘The grave no conquest gets, Death hath no sting.’
DEATH
LANGUAGE, thou art too narrow and too weak
To ease us now; great sorrows cannot speak.
If we could sigh out accents, and weep words,
Grief wears, and lessens, that tears breath affords.
Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are 5
—So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar—
Not that they know not, feel not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate.
Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we be,
Tyrant, in the fifth and greatest monarchy, 10
Was ’t that she did possess all hearts before,
Thou hast kill’d her, to make thy empire more?
Knew’st thou some would, that knew her not, lament,
As in a deluge perish th’ innocent?
Was ’t not enough to have that palace won, 15
But thou must raze it too, that was undone?
Hadst thou stay’d there, and look’d out at her eyes,
All had adored thee, that now from thee flies;
For they let out more light than they took in,
They told not when, but did the day begin. 20
She was too sapphirine and clear for thee;
Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be.
Alas! she was too pure, but not too weak;
Whoe’er saw crystal ordnance but would break?
And if we be thy conquest, by her fall 25
Thou hast lost thy end; in her we perish all;
Or if we live, we live but to rebel,
That know her better now, who knew her well.
If we should vapour out, and pine, and die,
Since she first went, that were not misery. 30
She changed our world with hers; now she is gone,
Mirth and prosperity is oppression;
For of all moral virtues she was all,
That eth
ics speak of virtues cardinal.
Her soul was paradise; the cherubin 35
Set to keep it was grace, that kept out sin.
She had no more than let in death, for we
All reap consumption from one fruitful tree.
God took her hence, lest some of us should love
Her, like that plant, Him and His laws above; 40
And when we tears, He mercy shed in this,
To raise our minds to heaven, where now she is;
Who if her virtues would have let her stay
We had had a saint, have now a holiday.
Her heart was that strange bush, where sacred fire, 45
Religion, did not consume, but inspire
Such piety, so chaste use of God’s day,
That what we turn to feast, she turn’d to pray;
And did prefigure here, in devout taste,
The rest of her high Sabbath, which shall last. 50
Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell,
For she was of that order whence most fell;
Her body’s left with us, lest some had said,
She could not die, except they saw her dead;
For from less virtue, and less beauteousness, 55
The Gentiles framed them gods and goddesses.
The ravenous earth, that now woos her to be
Earth too, will be a Lemnia, and the tree
That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb
Shall be took up spruce, fill’d with diamond. 60
And we her sad glad friends all bear a part
Of grief, for all would break a Stoic’s heart.
ELEGY ON THE LORD CHANCELLOR
SORROW, who to this house scarce knew the way,
Is, O, heir of it, our all is his prey.
This strange chance claims strange wonder, and to us
Nothing can be so strange as to weep thus.
’Tis well his life’s loud-speaking works deserve, 5
And give praise too, our cold tongues could not serve;
’Tis well he kept tears from our eyes before,
That to fit this deep ill we might have store.
O, if a sweet briar climb up by a tree,
If to a paradise that transplanted be, 10
Or fell’d, and burnt for holy sacrifice,
Yet that must wither which by it did rise,
As we for him dead; though no family
E’er rigg’d a soul for heaven’s discovery
With whom more venturers more boldly dare 15
Venture their states, with him in joy to share,
We lose what all friends loved, him; he gains now
But life by death, which worst foes would allow,
If he could have foes, in whose practice grew
All virtues, whose name subtle schoolmen knew. 20
What ease can hope that we shall see him beget,
When we must die first, and cannot die yet?
His children are his pictures; O, they be
Pictures of him dead, senseless, cold as he.
Here needs no marble tomb, since he is gone, 25
He, and about him his, are turn’d to stone.
A HYMN TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUIS HAMILTON
To Sir Robert CarrSIR, I presume you rather try what you can do in me, than what I can do in verse; you know my uttermost when it was best, and even then I did best when I had least truth for my subjects. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call therefore this paper by what name you will, and, if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, smother it, and be that the sacrifice. If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland and preached there, I would have embraced the obligation with more alacrity; but I thank you that you would command me that which I was loth to do, for even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of
Your poor friend and
servant in Christ Jesus,
J. D.
WHETHER that soul which now comes up to you
Fill any former rank, or make a new;
Whether it take a name named there before,
Or be a name itself and order more
Than was in heaven till now—for may not he 5
Be so, if every several angel be
A kind alone? whatever order grow
Greater by him in heaven, we do not so.
One of your orders grows by his access,
But, by his loss, grow all our orders less; 10
The name of father, master, friend, the name
Of subject and of prince, in one is lame;
Fair mirth is damp’d, and conversation black,
The Household widow’d, and the Garter slack;
The Chapel wants an ear, Council a tongue; 15
Story, a theme; and Music lacks a song.
Blest order that hath him, the loss of him
Gangrened all orders here; all lost a limb.
Never made body such haste to confess
What a soul was; all former comeliness 20
Fled, in a minute, when the soul was gone;
And, having lost that beauty, would have none.
So fell our monasteries, in an instant grown
Not to less houses, but to heaps of stone;
So sent his body that fair form it wore 25
Unto the sphere of forms, and doth—before
His soul shall fill up his sepulchral stone—
Anticipate a resurrection.
For, as in his fame now his soul is here,
So, in the form thereof, his body’s there; 30
And if, fair soul, not with first Innocents
Thy station be, but with the Penitents,
—And who shall dare to ask then, when I am
Dyed scarlet in the blood of that pure Lamb,
Whether that colour, which is scarlet then, 35
Were black or white before in eyes of men?—
When thou rememb’rest what sins thou didst find
Amongst those many friends now left behind,
And seest such sinners, as they are, with thee
Got thither by repentance, let it be 40
Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them clean,
Wish him a David, her a Magdalen.
EPIGRAMS
CONTENTS
HERO AND LEANDER.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE.
NIOBE.
A BURNT SHIP.
FALL OF A WALL.
A LAME BEGGAR.
A SELF-ACCUSER.
A LICENTIOUS PERSON.
ANTIQUARY.
DISINHERITED.
PHRYNE.
AN OBSCURE WRITER.
KLOCKIUS
RADERUS.
MERCURIUS GALLO-BELGICUS.
RALPHIUS
HERO AND LEANDER.
BOTH robb’d of air, we both lie in one ground;
Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drown’d.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE.
Two, by themselves, each other, love and fear,
Slain, cruel friends, by parting have join’d here.
NIOBE.
By children’s births, and death, I am become
So dry, that I am now mine own sad tomb.
A BURNT SHIP.
Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap’d forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes’ ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.
FALL OF A WALL.
Under an undermined and shot-bruised wall
A too-bold captain perish’d by the fall,
Whose brave misfortune happiest men envied,
That had a town for tomb, his bones to hide.
A LAME BEGGAR.
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he s
ay true, he lies.
A SELF-ACCUSER.
Your mistress, that you follow whores, still taxeth you;
‘Tis strange that she should thus confess it, though ‘t be true.
A LICENTIOUS PERSON.
Thy sins and hairs may no man equal call;
For, as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.
ANTIQUARY.
If in his study he hath so much care
To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.
DISINHERITED.
Thy father all from thee, by his last will,
Gave to the poor; thou hast good title still.
PHRYNE.
Thy flattering picture, Phryne, is like thee,
Only in this, that you both painted be.
AN OBSCURE WRITER.
Philo with twelve years’ study hath been grieved
To be understood; when will he be believed?
KLOCKIUS
Klockius so deeply hath sworn ne’er more to come
In bawdy house, that he dares not go home.
RADERUS.
Why this man gelded Martial I muse,
Except himself alone his tricks would use,
As Katherine, for the court’s sake, put down stews.
MERCURIUS GALLO-BELGICUS.
Like Esop’s fellow-slaves, O Mercury,
Which could do all things, thy faith is; and I
Like Esop’s self, which nothing. I confess
I should have had more faith, if thou hadst less.
Thy credit lost thy credit. ‘Tis sin to do,
In this case, as thou wouldst be done unto,
To believe all. Change thy name; thou art like
Mercury in stealing, but liest like a Greek.
RALPHIUS
Compassion in the world again is bred;
Ralphius is sick, the broker keeps his bed.
INFINITATI SACRUM
16. Augusti 1601.
METEMPSYCOSIS.
EPISTLE.
Others at the Porches and entries of their Buildings set their Armes; I, my picture; if any colours can deliver a minde so plaine, and flat, and through-light as mine. Naturally at a new Author, I doubt, and sticke, and doe not say quickly, good. I censure much and taxe; And this liberty costs mee more than others, by how much my owne things are worse than others. Yet I would not be so rebellious against my selfe, as not to doe it, since I love it; nor so unjust to others, to do it sine talione. As long as I give them as good hold upon mee, they must pardon mee my bitings. I forbid no reprehender, but him that like the Trent Councell forbids not bookes, but Authors, damning what ever such a name hath or shall write. None writes so ill, that he gives not some thing exemplary, to follow, or flie. Now when I beginne this booke, I have no purpose to come into any mans debt; how my stocke will hold out I know not; perchance waste, perchance increase in use; if I doe borrow any thing of Antiquitie, besides that I make account that I pay it to posterity, with as much and as good: You shall still finde mee to acknowledge it, and to thanke not him onely that hath digg’d out treasure for mee, but that hath lighted mee a candle to the place. All which I bid you remember, (for I will have no such Readers as I can teach) is, that the Pithagorian doctrine doth not onely carry one soule from man to man, nor man to beast, but indifferently to plants also: and therefore you must not grudge to finde the same soule in an Emperour, in a Post-horse, and in a Mucheron, since no unreadinesse in the soule, but an indisposition in the organs workes this. And therefore though this soule could not move when it was a Melon, yet it may remember, and now tell mee, at what lascivious banquet it was serv’d. And though it could not speaker, when it was a spider, yet it can remember, and now tell me, who used it for poison to attaine dignitie. How ever the bodies have dull’d her other faculties, her memory hath ever been her owne, which makes me so seriously deliver you by her relation all her passages from her first making when shee was that apple which Eve eate, to this time when shee is hee, whose life you shall finde in the end of this booke.
