The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) / Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts

S  WEETEST love, I do not goe,

   For wearinesse of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

A fitter Love for mee;

  5But since that I

Must dye at last, 'tis best,

To use my selfe in jest

Thus by fain'd deaths to dye;

Yesternight the Sunne went hence,

10And yet is here to day,

He hath no desire nor sense,

Nor halfe so short a way:

Then feare not mee,

But beleeve that I shall make

15Speedier journeyes, since I take

More wings and spurres then hee.

O how feeble is mans power,

That if good fortune fall,

Cannot adde another houre,

20Nor a lost houre recall!

But come bad chance,

And wee joyne to'it our strength,

And wee teach it art and length,

It selfe o'r us to'advance.

25When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not winde,

But sigh'st my soule away,

When thou weep'st, unkindly kinde,

My lifes blood doth decay.

It cannot bee

30That thou lov'st mee, as thou say'st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

Thou art the best of mee.

Let not thy divining heart

Forethinke me any ill,

35Destiny may take thy part,

And may thy feares fulfill;

But thinke that wee

Are but turn'd aside to sleepe;

They who one another keepe

40Alive, ne'r parted bee.

WHEN I dyed last, and, Deare, I dye

As often as from thee I goe,

Though it be but an houre agoe,

And Lovers houres be full eternity,

  5I can remember yet, that I

Something did say, and something did bestow;

Though I be dead, which sent mee, I should be

Mine owne executor and Legacie.

I heard mee say, Tell her anon,

10That my selfe, (that is you, not I,)

Did kill me, and when I felt mee dye,

I bid mee send my heart, when I was gone,

But I alas could there finde none,

When I had ripp'd me,'and search'd where hearts did lye;

15It kill'd mee againe, that I who still was true,

In life, in my last Will should cozen you.

Yet I found something like a heart,

But colours it, and corners had,

It was not good, it was not bad,

20It was intire to none, and few had part.

As good as could be made by art

It seem'd; and therefore for our losses sad,

I meant to send this heart in stead of mine,

But oh, no man could hold it, for twas thine.

O H doe not die, for I shall hate

  All women so, when thou art gone,

That thee I shall not celebrate,

When I remember, thou wast one.

  5But yet thou canst not die, I know;

To leave this world behinde, is death,

But when thou from this world wilt goe,

The whole world vapors with thy breath.

Or if, when thou, the worlds soule, goest,

10It stay, tis but thy carkasse then,

The fairest woman, but thy ghost,

But corrupt wormes, the worthyest men.

O wrangling schooles, that search what fire

Shall burne this world, had none the wit

15Unto this knowledge to aspire,

That this her feaver might be it?

And yet she cannot wast by this,

Nor long beare this torturing wrong,

For much corruption needfull is

20To fuell such a feaver long.

These burning fits but meteors bee,

Whose matter in thee is soone spent.

Thy beauty,'and all parts, which are thee,

Are unchangeable firmament.

25Yet t'was of my minde, seising thee,

Though it in thee cannot persever.

For I had rather owner bee

Of thee one houre, then all else ever.

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame,

Angells affect us oft, and worship'd bee;

  5Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

But since my soule, whose child love is,

Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe,

More subtile then the parent is,

10Love must not be, but take a body too,

And therefore what thou wert, and who,

I bid Love aske, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.

15Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,

And so more steddily to have gone,

With wares which would sinke admiration,

I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,

Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke upon

20Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;

Then as an Angell, face, and wings

Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare,

25So thy love may be my loves spheare;

Just such disparitie

As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie,

'Twixt womens love, and mens will ever bee.

'T  IS true, 'tis day; what though it be?

   O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise, because 'tis light?

Did we lie downe, because 'twas night?

  5Love which in spight of darknesse brought us hether,

Should in despight of light keepe us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speake as well as spie,

This were the worst, that it could say,

10That being well, I faine would stay,

And that I lov'd my heart and honor so,

That I would not from him, that had them, goe.

Must businesse thee from hence remove?

Oh, that's the worst disease of love,

15The poore, the foule, the false, love can

Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath businesse, and makes love, doth doe

Such wrong, as when a maryed man doth wooe.

A LL Kings, and all their favorites,

  All glory of honors, beauties, wits,

The Sun it selfe, which makes times, as they passe,

Is elder by a yeare, now, then it was

  5When thou and I first one another saw:

All other things, to their destruction draw,

Only our love hath no decay;

This, no to morrow hath, nor yesterday,

Running it never runs from us away,

10But truly keepes his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,

If one might, death were no divorce.

Alas, as well as other Princes, wee,

(Who Prince enough in one another bee,)

15Must leave at last in death, these eyes, and eares,

Oft fed with true oathes, and with sweet salt teares;

But soules where nothing dwells but love

(All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove

This, or a love increased there above,

20When bodies to their graves, soules from their graves remove.

And then wee shall be throughly blest,

But wee no more, then all the rest;

Here upon earth, we'are Kings, and none but wee

Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects bee.

25Who is so safe as wee? where none can doe

Treason to us, except one of us two.

True and false feares let us refraine,

Let us love nobly, and live, and adde againe

Yeares and yeares unto yeares, till we attaine

30To write threescore: this is the second of our raigne.

'Tis much that Glasse should bee

As all confessing, and through-shine as I,

'Tis more, that it shewes thee to thee,

10And cleare reflects thee to thine eye.

But all such rules, loves magique can undoe,

Here you see mee, and I am you.

As no one point, nor dash,

Which are but accessaries to this name,

15The showers and tempests can outwash,

So shall all times finde mee the same;

You this intirenesse better may fulfill,

Who have the patterne with you still.

Or, if too hard and deepe

20This learning be, for a scratch'd name to teach,

It, as a given deaths head keepe,

Lovers mortalitie to preach,

Or thinke this ragged bony name to bee

My ruinous Anatomie.

25Then, as all my soules bee,

Emparadis'd in you, (in whom alone

I understand, and grow and see,)

The rafters of my body, bone

Being still with you, the Muscle, Sinew, and Veine,

30Which tile this house, will come againe.

Till my returne, repaire

And recompact my scattered body so.

As all the vertuous powers which are

Fix'd in the starres, are said to flow

35Into such characters, as graved bee

When these starres have supremacie:

So, since this name was cut

When love and griefe their exaltation had,

No doore 'gainst this names influence shut;

40As much more loving, as more sad,

'Twill make thee; and thou shouldst, till I returne,

Since I die daily, daily mourne.

When thy inconsiderate hand

Flings ope this casement, with my trembling name,

45To looke on one, whose wit or land,

New battry to thy heart may frame,

Then thinke this name alive, and that thou thus

In it offendst my Genius.

And when thy melted maid,

50Corrupted by thy Lover's gold, and page,

His letter at thy pillow'hath laid,

Disputed it, and tam'd thy rage,

And thou begin'st to thaw towards him, for this,

May my name step in, and hide his.

55And if this treason goe

To an overt act, and that thou write againe;

In superscribing, this name flow

Into thy fancy, from the pane.

So, in forgetting thou remembrest right,

60And unaware to mee shalt write.

But glasse, and lines must bee,

No meanes our firme substantiall love to keepe;

Neere death inflicts this lethargie,

And this I murmure in my sleepe;

65Impute this idle talke, to that I goe,

For dying men talke often so.

10'Twere wholsomer for mee, that winter did

Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh, and mocke mee to my face;

But that I may not this disgrace

15Indure, nor yet leave loving, Love let mee

Some senslesse peece of this place bee;

Make me a mandrake, so I may groane here,

Or a stone fountaine weeping out my yeare.

Hither with christall vyals, lovers come,

20And take my teares, which are loves wine,

And try your mistresse Teares at home,

For all are false, that tast not just like mine;

Alas, hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge womans thoughts by teares,

25Then by her shadow, what she weares.

O perverse sexe, where none is true but shee,

Who's therefore true, because her truth kills mee.

  5How thine may out-endure

Sybills glory, and obscure

Her who from Pindar could allure,

And her, through whose helpe Lucan is not lame,

And her, whose booke (they say) Homer did finde, and name.

10Study our manuscripts, those Myriades

Of letters, which have past twixt thee and mee,

Thence write our Annals, and in them will bee

To all whom loves subliming fire invades,

Rule and example found;

15There, the faith of any ground

No schismatique will dare to wound,

That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,

To make, to keep, to use, to be these his Records.

This Booke, as long-liv'd as the elements,

20Or as the worlds forme, this all-graved tome

In cypher writ, or new made Idiome,

Wee for loves clergie only'are instruments:

When this booke is made thus,

Should againe the ravenous

25Vandals and Goths inundate us,

Learning were safe; in this our Universe

Schooles might learne Sciences, Spheares Musick, Angels Verse.

Here Loves Divines, (since all Divinity

Is love or wonder) may finde all they seeke,

30Whether abstract spirituall love they like,

Their Soules exhal'd with what they do not see,

Or, loth so to amuze

Faiths infirmitie, they chuse

Something which they may see and use;

35For, though minde be the heaven, where love doth sit,

Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.

Here more then in their bookes may Lawyers finde,

Both by what titles Mistresses are ours,

And how prerogative these states devours,

40Transferr'd from Love himselfe, to womankinde,

Who though from heart, and eyes,

They exact great subsidies,

Forsake him who on them relies,

And for the cause, honour, or conscience give,

45Chimeraes, vaine as they, or their prerogative.

Here Statesmen, (or of them, they which can reade,)

May of their occupation finde the grounds:

Love and their art alike it deadly wounds,

If to consider what 'tis, one proceed,

50In both they doe excell

Who the present governe well,

Whose weaknesse none doth, or dares tell;

In this thy booke, such will their nothing see,

As in the Bible some can finde out Alchimy.

55Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll studie thee,

As he removes farre off, that great heights takes;

How great love is, presence best tryall makes,

But absence tryes how long this love will bee;

To take a latitude

60Sun, or starres, are fitliest view'd

At their brightest, but to conclude

Of longitudes, what other way have wee,

But to marke when, and where the darke eclipses bee?

But they are ours as fruits are ours,

20He that but tasts, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well:

Chang'd loves are but chang'd sorts of meat,

And when hee hath the kernell eate,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg'd, but showne.

Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,

20From loves awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stir'd more circles bee

Produc'd by one, love such additions take,

Those like so many spheares, but one heaven make,

For, they are all concentrique unto thee.

25And though each spring doe adde to love new heate,

As princes doe in times of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the springs encrease.

15Give mee thy weaknesse, make mee blinde,

Both wayes, as thou and thine, in eies and minde;

Love, let me never know that this

Is love, or, that love childish is;

Let me not know that others know

20That she knowes my paines, least that so

A tender shame make me mine owne new woe.

If thou give nothing, yet thou'art just,

Because I would not thy first motions trust;

Small townes which stand stiffe, till great shot

25Enforce them, by warres law condition not.

Such in loves warfare is my case,

I may not article for grace,

Having put Love at last to shew this face.

This face, by which he could command

30And change the Idolatrie of any land,

This face, which wheresoe'r it comes,

Can call vow'd men from cloisters, dead from tombes,

And melt both Poles at once, and store

Deserts with cities, and make more

35Mynes in the earth, then Quarries were before.

For this, Love is enrag'd with mee,

Yet kills not. If I must example bee

To future Rebells; If th'unborne

Must learne, by my being cut up, and torne:

40Kill, and dissect me, Love; for this

Torture against thine owne end is,

Rack't carcasses make ill Anatomies.