John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  For the worlds beauty is decayd, or gone,

  Disformity of parts.

  Beauty, that’s colour, and proportion.

  We thinke the heauens enioy their Sphericall

  Their round proportion embracing all.

  But yet their various and perplexed course,

  Obseru’d in diuerse ages doth enforce

  Men to find out so many Eccentrique parts,

  Such diuers downe-right lines, such ouerthwarts,

  As disproportion that pure forme. It teares

  The Firmament in eight and forty sheeres,

  And in these constillations then arise

  New starres, and old doe vanish from our eyes:

  As though heau’n suffered earth quakes, peace or war,

  When new Towers rise, and old demolish’t are.

  They haue impayld within a Zodiake

  The free-borne Sun, and keepe twelue signes awake

  To watch his stepps; the Goat and Crabbe controule,

  And fright him backe, who els to either Pole,

  (Did not these Tropiques fetter him) might runne:

  For his course is not round; nor can the Sunne

  Perfit a Circle, or maintaine his way

  One inche direct; but where he rose to day

  He comes no more, but with a cousening line,

  Steales by that point, and so is Serpentine:

  And seeming weary with his reeling thus,

  He meanes to sleepe, being now falne nearer vs.

  So, of the Starres which boast that they doe runne.

  In Circle still, none ends where he begunne.

  All their proportion’s lame, it sinckes, it swels.

  For of Meridians, and Parallels,

  Man hath weaued out a net, and this net throwne

  Vpon the Heauens, and now they are his owne.

  Loth to goe vp the hill, or labour thus

  To goe to heauen, we make heauen come to vs.

  We spur, we raigne the stars, and in their race

  They’re diuersly content t’obey our peace,

  But keepes the earth her round proportion still?

  Doth not a Tenerif, or higher Hill

  Rise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinke

  The floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sinke?

  Seas are so deepe, that Whales being strooke to day,

  Perchance too morrow, scarse at middle way

  Of their wish’d iorneys ende, the bottom, die.

  And men, to sound depths, so much line vntie,

  As one might iustly thinke, that there would rise

  At end thereof, one of th’Antipodies:

  If vnder all, a Vault infernall be,

  (Which sure is spacious, except that we

  Invent another torment, that there must

  Millions into a strait hot roome be thrust)

  Then solidnesse, and roundnesse haue no place.

  Are these but warts, and pock-holes in the face

  Of th’earth? Thinke so: But yet confesse, in this

  The worlds proportion disfigured is,

  That those two legges whereon it doth rely,

  Reward and punishment are bent awry.

  And, Oh, it can no more be questioned,

  That beauties best, proportion, is dead,

  Since euen griefe it selfe, which now alone

  Is left vs, is without proportion.

  Shee by whose lines proportion should bee

  Examin’d measure of all Symmetree,

  Whom had the Ancient seene, who thought soules made

  Of Harmony, he would at next haue said

  That Harmony was shee, and thence infer.

  That soules were but Resultances from her,

  And did from her into our bodies goe,

  As to our eyes, the formes from obiects flow:

  Shee, who if those great Doctors truely said

  That the Arke to mans proportion was made,

  Had beene a type for that, as that might be

  A type of her in this, that contrary

  Both Elements and Passions liu’d at peace

  In her, who cau’d all Ciuill war to cease.

  Shee, after whom, what forme soe’re we see,

  Is discord, and rude incongruitee,

  Shee, shee is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,

  Thou knowst how vgly a monster this world is:

  And learnest thus much by our Anatomee,

  That here is nothing to enamour thee:

  And that, not onely faults in inward parts,

  Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts.

  Poysoning the fountaines, whence our actions spring,

  Endanger us: but that if euery thing

  Be not done fitly’nd in proportion,

  To satisfie wise, and good lookers on,

  (Since most men be such as most thinke they bee)

  They’re lothsome too, by this Deformitee.

  For good, and well, must in our actions meete;

  Wicked is not much worse then indiscreet.

  But beauties other second Element,

  Colour, and lustre now, is as neere spent.

  And had the world his iust proportion,

  Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.

  As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tell

  By looking pale, the wearer is not well,

  As gold fals sicke being stung with Mercury,

  All the worlds parts of such complexion bee.

  When nature was most busie, the first weeke,

  Swadling the new borne earth God seemd to like,

  That she should sport her selfe sometimes, and play,

  To mingle, and vary colours euery day.

  And then, as though she could not make inow

  Himselfe his various Rainbow did allow,

  Sight is the noblest sense of any one,

  Yet sight hath onely colour to feede on,

  And colour is decayd: summers robe growes

  Duskie, and like an oft dyed garment showes.

  Our blushing redde, which vs’d in cheekes to spred,

  Is inward sunke and onely our soules are redde.

  Perchance the world might haue recouered,

  If shee whom we lament had not bene dead:

  But she, in whom all white, and red, and blew

  (Beauties ingredients) voluntary grew,

  As in an vnuext Paradise; from whom

  Did all things verdure, and their lustre come,

  Whose composition was miraculous,

  Being all colour, all Diaphanous,

  (For Ayre, and Fire but thinke grosse bodies were,

  And liueliest stones but drowsie, and pale to her,)

  Shee, shee, is dead; she’s dead: when thou knowest this,

  Thou knowest how wan a Ghost this our world is:

  And learnst thus much by our Anatomee,

  That it should more affright, then pleasure thee.

  And that, since all faire colour then did sinke,

  ‘Tis now but wicked vanitie to thinke,

  Weakenesse in the want of correspondence of heauen & earth.

  To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,

  Or with bought colors to illude mens sense.

  Nor in ought more this worlds decay appeares,

  Then that her influence the heau’n forbeares,

  Or that the Elements doe not feele this,

  The father, or the mother barren is.

  The clouds conceiue not raine, or doe not powre

  In the due birth-time, down the balmy showre.

  Th’Ayre doth not motherly sit on the earth,

  To hatch her seasons, and giue all things birth.

  Spring-times were common cradles, but are toombes,

  And false conceptions fill the generall wombes.

  Th’ayre showes such Meteors, as none can see,

  Not onely what they meane, but what they bee.

  Earth such n
ew wormes, as would haue troubled much,

  Th’Egyptian Mages to haue made more such.

  What Artist now dares boast that he can bring

  Heauen hither, or constellate any thing,

  So as the influence of those starres may bee

  Imprisoned in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree.

  And doe by touch, all which those starres could doe?

  The art is lost, and correspondence too.

  For heauen giues little, and the earth takes lesse,

  And man least knowes their trades and purposes.

  If this commerce twixt heauen and earth were not

  Embarr’d, and all this trafique quite forgot,

  Shee, for whose losse we haue lamented thus,

  Would worke more fully and pow’rfully on vs.

  Since herbes and roots by dying, lose not all,

  But they, yea Ashes too, are medicinall,

  Death could not quench her vertue so, but that

  It would be (if not follow’d) wondred at:

  And all the world would be one dying Swan,

  To sing her generall praise, and vanish than.

  But as some Serpents poyson hurteth not,

  Except it be from the liue Serpent shot,

  So doth her vertue need her here, to fit

  That unto vs; she working more then it.

  But she, in whom, to such maturity,

  Verue was grown, past gtrouth, that it must die,

  She from whose influence all Impresion came,

  But by receiuers impotencies, lame,

  Who, though she could not transubstantiate

  All states to gold, yet guilded euery state,

  So that some Princes haue some temperance;

  Some Counsellors some purpose to aduance

  The common profite; and some people haue

  Some stay, no more then Kings should giue, to craue;

  Some women haue some taciturnity,

  Some Nunneries, some graines of chastity.

  She that did thus much, & much more could doe,

  But that our age was Iron, and rusty too,

  Shee, shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou knowest this,

  Thou knowest how drie a Cinder this world is.

  And learnst thus much by our Anatomy,

  That ‘tis in vaine to dew, or mollifie

  It with thy Teares, or Sweat, or Blood: no thing

  Is worth our trauaile, griefe, or perishing,

  But those rich ioyes, which did possesse her heart,

  Of which shee’s now partaker, and a part.

  Conclusion.

  But as in cutting vp a man that’s dead,

  The body will not last out to haue read

  On euery part, and therefore men direct

  Their speech to parts, that are of most effect;

  So the worlds carcasse would not last, if I

  Were punctuall in this Anatomy.

  Nor smels it well to hearers, if one tell

  Them their disease, who faine would thinke they’re well.

  Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,

  Of whom is meant what euer hath beene said,

  Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,

  Whose name refines course lines, and makes prose song,

  Accept this tribute, and his first yeeres rent,

  Who till his darke short tapers end be spent,

  As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth,

  Will yeerely celebrate thy second birth,

  That is, thy death. For though the soule of man

  Be got when man is made, ‘tis borne but than

  When man doth die, Our bodi’s as the wombe,

  And as a Mid-wife death directs it home.

  And you her creatures, whom she workes vpon

  And haue your last, and best concoction

  From her example, and her vertue, if you

  In reuerence to her, doe thinke it due,

  That no one should her prayses thus reherse,

  As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse,

  Vouchsafe to call to minde, that God did make

  A last, and lastingst peece, a song. He spake

  To Moses, to deliuer vnto all,

  That song: because he knew they would let fall,

  The Law, the Prophets, and the History,

  But keepe the song still in their memory.

  Such an opinion (in due measure) made

  Me this great Office boldly to inuade.

  Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre

  Me, from thus trying to emprison her.

  Which when I saw that a strict graue could doe,

  I saw not why verse might not doe so too.

  Verse hath a middle nature: Heauen keepes soules,

  The Graue keepes bodies, Verse the fame enroules.

  THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY

  O F

  T H E P R O G R E S

  of the Soule.

  Wherein,

  B Y O C C A S I O N O F

  The Religious death of Mistris

  E L I Z A B E T H D R V R Y,

  the incommodities of the Soule

  in this life, and her exaltation in

  the next, are Contem-

  plated.

  L O N D O N

  THE HARBINGER

  to the Progresse.

  TWO soules moue here, and mine (a third) must moue

  Paces of admiration, and of loue;

  Thy soule (Deare Virgin) whose this tribute is,

  Mou’d from this mortall sphere to liuely blisse,

  And yet moues still, and still aspires to see

  The worlds last day, thy glories full degree:

  Like as those starres which thou ore-lookest farre,

  Are in their place, and yet still moued are

  No soule (whiles with the luggage of this clay

  It clogged is) can follow thee halfe way;

  Or see thy flight; which doth our thoughts outgoe

  So fast, that now the lightning moues but slow:

  But now thou art as high in heauen flowne

  As heau’ns from vs; what soule besides thine owne

  Can tell thy ioyes, or say he can relate

  Thy glorious Iornals in that blessed state?

  I enuie thee (Rich soule) I enuy thee,

  Although I cannot yet thy glory see:

  And thou (Great spirit) which her’s follow’d hast

  So fast, as none can follow thine so fast;

  So farre as none can follow thine so farre,

  (And if this flesh did not the passage barre

  Had’st caught her) let me wonder at thy flight

  Which long agone had’st lost the vulgar sight

  And now mak’st proud the better eyes, that they

  Can see thee les’ned in thine aery way;

  So while thou mak’st her soule by progresse knowne

  Thou mak’st a noble progresse of thine owne.

  From this worlds carcasse hauing mounted hie

  To that pure life of Immortalitie;

  Since thine aspiring thoughts themselues so raise

  That more may not beseeme a creatures praise,

  Yet still thou vow’st her more; and euery yeare

  Mak’st a new Progresse, while thou wandrest here;

  Still vpward mount; and let thy makers praise

  Honor thy Laura, and adorne thy laies.

  And since thy Muses head in heauen shrouds

  Oh let her neuer stoope below the clouds:

  And if those glorious sainted soules may know

  Or what we doe, or what we sing below,

  Those acts, those songs shall still content them best

  Which praise those awfull powers that make them blest.

  THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY

  O F

  T H E P R O G R E S

  of the Soule.

  NOTHING could make me sooner to confesse.

  The entrance.

  That thi
s world had an euerlastingnesse,

  Then to consider, that a yeare is runne,

  Since both this lower worlds, and the Sunnes, Sunne,

  The Lustre, and the vigor of this All,

  Did set; t’were Blasphemy, to say, did fall.

  But as a ship which hath strooke saile, doth runne,

  By force of that force which before, it wonne:

  Or as sometimes in a beheaded man,

  Though at those two Red seas, which freely ran,

  One from the Trunke, another from the Head,

  His soule he saild, to her eternall bed,

  His eies will twinckle, and his tongue will roll,

  As though he beckned, and cal’d backe his Soul,

  He graspes his hands, and he puls vp his feet,

  And seemes to reach, and to step forth to meet

  His soule; when all these motions which we saw,

  Are but as Ice, which crackles at a thaw:

  Or as a lute, which in moist weather, rings

  Her knell alone, by cracking of her strings.

  So strugles this dead world, now shee is gone;

  For there is motion in corruption.

  As some Daies are, at the Creation nam’d,

  Before the Sunne, the which fram’d Daies, was fram’d,

  So after this Sunnes set some show appeares,

  And orderly vicissitude of yeares.

  Yet a new Deluge, and of Lethe flood,

  Hath drown’vs all, All haue forgot all good,

  Forgetting her, the maine Reserue of all,

  Yet in this Deluge, grosse and generall,

  Thou seest me striue for life; my life shall be,

  To bee hereafter prais’d, for praysing thee,

  Immortall Maid, who though thou wouldst refuse

  The name of Mother, be vnto my Muse,

  A Father since her chaste ambition is,

  Yearely to bring forth such a child as this.

  These Hymnes may worke on future wits, and so

  May great Grand-children of thy praises grow.

  And so, though not Reuiue, enbalme, and spice

  The world which else would putrifie with vice.

  For thus, Man may extend thy progeny,

  Vntill man doe but vanish, and not die.

  These Hymns they issue, may encrease so long,

  As till Gods great Venite change the song.

  Thirst for that time, O my initiate soule,

  A iust dis-estimation of this world.

  And serue thy thirst, with Gods safe-sealing Bowle.

  Bee thirsty still, and drinke still till thou goe;

  To th’onely Health, to be Hydroptique so.

  Forget this rotten world; And vnto thee,

  Let thine owne times as an old story be.

  Be not concern’d: study not why, nor whan;

  Doe not so much, as not beleeue a man.

  For though to erre, be worst, to try truths forth,