by John Donne
No, no, Thou which since yesterday hast beene
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seene,
O Sunne, in all thy journey, Vanitie,
Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
Thinke he which made your waxen garden, and
Transported it from Italy to stand
With us, at London, flouts our Presence, for
Just such gay painted things, which no sappe, nor
Tast have in them, ours are; And naturall
Some of the stocks are, their fruits, bastard all.
’Tis ten a clock and past; All whom the Mues,
Baloune, Tennis, Dyet, or the stewes,
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready, that day, in flocks, are found
In the Presence, and I, (God pardon mee.)
As fresh, and sweet their Apparrells be, as bee
The fields they sold to buy them; For a King
Those hose are, cry the flatterers; And bring
Them next weeke to the Theatre to sell;
Wants reach all states; Me seemes they doe as well
At stage, as court; All are players, who e’r lookes
(For themselves dare not goe) o’r Cheapside books,
Shall finde their wardrops Inventory; Now,
The Ladies come; As Pirats, which doe know
That there came weak ships fraught with Cutchannel,
The men board them; and praise, as they thinke, well,
Their beauties; they the mens wits; Both are bought.
Why good wits ne’r weare scarlet gownes, I thought
This cause, These men, mens wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets die.
He call’d her beauty limetwigs, her haire net.
She feares her drugs ill laid, her haire loose set;
Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine,
From hat, to shooe, himselfe at doore refine,
As if the Presence were a Moschite, and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confesse not only mortall
Great staines and holes in them; but veniall
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate:
And then by Durers rules survay the state
Of his each limbe, and with strings the odds trye
Of his neck to his legge, and wast to thighes.
So in immaculate clothes, and Symetrie
Perfect as circles, with such nicetie
As a young Preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a Lady which owes
Him not so much as good will, he arrests,
And unto her protests protests protests
So much as at Rome would serve to have throwne
Ten Cardinalls into the Inquisition;
And whispered by Jesu, so often, that A
Pursevant would have ravish’d him away
For saying of our Ladies psalter; But ’tis fit
That they each other plague, they merit it.
But here comes Glorius that will plague them both,
Who, in the other extreme, only doth
Call a rough carelessenesse, good fashion;
Whose cloak his spurres teare; whom he spits on
He cares not, His ill words doe no harme
To him; he rusheth in, as if arme, arme,
He meant to crie; And though his face be as ill
As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
He strives to looke worse, he keepes all in awe;
Jeasts like a licenc’d foole, commands like law.
Tyr’d, now I leave this place, and but pleas’d so
As men which from gaoles to’execution goe,
Goe through the great chamber (why is it hung
With the seaven deadly sinnes?) being among
Those Askaparts, men big enough to throw
Charing Crosse for a barre, men that doe know
No token of worth, but Queenes man, and fine
Living, barrells of beefe, flaggons of wine;
I shooke like a spyed Spie; Preachers which are
Seas of Wits and Arts, you can, then dare,
Drowne the sinnes of this place, for, for mee
Which am but a scarce brooke, it enough shall bee
To wash the staines away; though I yet
With Macchabees modestie, the knowne merit
Of my worke lessen: yet some wise man shall,
I hope, esteeme my writs Canonicall.
SATYRE V
Thou shalt not laugh in this leafe, Muse, nor they
Whom any pitty warmes; He which did lay
Rules to make Courtiers, (hee being understood
May make good Courtiers, but who Courtiers good?)
Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme
Are wreched or wicked: of these two a theame
Charity and liberty give me. What is hee
Who Officers rage, and Suiters misery
Can write, and jest? If all things be in all,
As I thinke, since all, which were, are, and shall
Bee, be made of the same elements:
Each thing, each thing implyes or represents.
Then man is a world; in which, Officers
Are the vast ravishing seas; and Suiters,
Springs; now full, now shallow, now drye; which, to
That which drownes them, run: These selfe reasons do
Prove the world a man, in which, officers
Are the devouring stomacke, and Suiters
The excrements, which they voyd; all men are dust;
How much worse are Suiters, who to mens lust
Are made preyes. O worse then dust, or wormes meat
For they do eate you now, whose selves wormes shall eate.
They are the mills which grinde you, yet you are
The winde which drives them; and a wastfull warre
Is fought against you, and you fight it; they
Adulterate lawe, and you prepare their way
Like wittals, th’issue your owne ruine is;
Greatest and fairest Empresse, know you this?
Alas, no more then Thames calme head doth know
Whose meades her armes drowne, or whose corne o’rflow:
You Sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I
By having leave to serve, am most richly
For service paid, authorized, now beginne
To know and weed out this enormous sinne.
O Age of rusty iron! Some better wit
Call it some worse name, if ought equall it;
The iron Age that was, when justice was sold, now
Injustice is sold dearer farre; allow
All demands, fees, and duties; gamsters, anon
The mony which you sweat, and sweare for, is gon
Into other hands: So controverted lands
Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands.
If Law be the Judges heart, and hee
Have no heart to resist letter, or fee,
Where wilt thou appeale? powre of the Courts below
Flow from the first maine head, and these can throw
Thee, if they sucke thee in, to misery,
To fetters, halters; But if the injury
Steele thee to dare complaine, Alas, thou goest
Against the stream, when upwards: when thou art most
Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they,
’Gainst whom thou should’st complaine, will in the way
Become great seas, o’r which, when thou shalt bee
Forc’d to make golden bridges, thou shalt see
That all thy gold was drown’d in them before;
All things follow their like, only who have may have more.
Judges are Gods; he who made and said them so,
Meant not that men should be forc’d to them to goe,
By meanes of Ange
ls; When supplications
We send to God, to Dominations,
Powers, Cherubins, and all heavens Courts, if wee
Should pay fees as here, Daily bread would be
Scarce to Kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger
A Stoicke, a coward, yea a Martyr,
To see a Pursivant come in, and call
All his cloathes, Copes; Bookes, Primers; and all
His Plate, Challices; and mistake them away,
And aske a fee for comming? Oh, ne’r may
Faire lawes white reverend name be strumpeted,
To warrant thefts: she is established
Recorder to Destiny, on earth, and shee
Speakes Fates words, and but tells us who must bee
Rich, who poore, who in chaires, who in jayles:
Shee is all faire, but yet hath foule long nailes,
With which she scracheth Suiters; In bodies
Of men, so in law, nailes are th’extremities,
So Officers stretch to more then Law can doe,
As our nailes reach what no else part comes to.
Why barest thou to yon Officer? Foole, Hath hee
Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee?
Foole, twice, thrice, thou hast bought wrong, and now hungerly
Beg’st right; But that dole comes not till these dye.
Thou had’st much, and lawes Urim and Thummim trie
Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper
Enough to cloath all the great Carricks Pepper.
Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese,
Then Haman, when he sold his Antiquities.
O wretch that thy fortunes should moralize
Esops fables, and make tales, prophesies.
Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cosened,
And div’st, neare drowning, for what vanished.
LETTERS TO THE COUNTESS OF BEDFORD
REASON IS OUR SOULES LEFT HAND
MADAME,
Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith her right,
By these wee reach divinity, that’s you;
Their loves, who have the blessings of your light,
Grew from their reason, mine from faire faith grew.
But as, although a squint lefthandednesse
Be’ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand,
So would I, not to encrease, but to expresse
My faith, as I beleeve, 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 reade, and what your selfe devize.
But soone, the reasons why you’are lov’d by all,
Grow infinite, and so passe reasons reach,
Then backe againe to’implicate faith I fall,
And rest on what the Catholique voice doth teach;
That you are good: and not one Heretique
Denies it: if he did, yet you are so.
For, rockes, which high top’d and deep rooted sticke,
Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.
In every thing there naturally growes
A Balsamum to keepe it fresh, and new,
If’twere not injur’d by extrinsique blowes:
Your birth and beauty are this Balme in you.
But you of learning and religion,
And vertue,’and such ingredients, have made
A methridate, whose operation
Keepes off, or cures what can be done or said.
Yet, this is not your physicke, but your food,
A dyet fit for you; for you are here
The first good Angell, since the worlds frame stood,
That ever did in womans shape appeare.
Since you are then Gods masterpeece, and so
His Factor for our loves; do as you doe,
Make your returne home gracious; and bestow
This life on that; so make one life of two.
For so God helpe mee,’I would not misse you there
For all the good which you can do me here.
YOU HAVE REFIN’D MEE
MADAME,
You have refin’d mee, and to worthyest things
Vertue, Art, Beauty, Fortune, now I see
Rarenesse, or use, not nature value brings;
And such, as they are circumstanc’d, they bee.
Two ills can ne’re perplexe us, sinne to’excuse;
But of two good things, we may leave and chuse.
Therefore at Court, which is not vertues clime,
Where a transcendent height, (as, lownesse mee)
Makes her not be, or not show: all my rime
Your vertues challenge, which there rarest bee;
For, as darke texts need notes: there some must bee
To usher vertue, and say, This is shee.
So in the country’is beauty; to this place
You are the season (Madame) you the day,
’Tis but a grave of spices, till your face
Exhale them, and a thick close bud display.
Widow’d and reclus’d else, her sweets she’enshrines
As China, when the Sunne at Brasill dines.
Out from your chariot, morning breaks at night,
And falsifies both computations so;
Since a new world doth rise here from your light,
We your new creatures, by new recknings goe.
This showes that you from nature lothly stray,
That suffer not an artificiall day.
In this you’have made the Court the Antipodes,
And will’d your Delegate, the vulgar Sunne,
To doe profane autumnall offices,
Whilst here to you, wee sacrificers runne;
And whether Priests, or Organs, you wee’obey,
We sound your influence, and your Dictates say.
Yet to that Deity which dwels in you,
Your vertuous Soule, I now not sacrifice;
These are Petitions, and not Hymnes; they sue
But that I may survay the edifice.
In all Religions as much care hath bin
Of Temples frames, and beauty,’as Rites within.
As all which goe to Rome, doe not thereby
Esteeme religions, and hold fast the best,
But serve discourse, and curiosity,
With that which doth religion but invest,
And shunne th’en tangling laborinths of Schooles,
And make it wit, to thinke the wiser fooles:
So in this pilgrimage I would behold
You as you’are vertues temple, not as shee,
What walls of tender christall her enfold,
What eyes, hands, bosome, her pure Altars bee;
And after this survay, oppose to all
Bablers of Chappels, you th’Escuriall.
Yet not as consecrate, but merely’as faire;
On these I cast a lay and country eye.
Of past and future stories, which are rare
I finde you all record, and prophecie.
Purge but the booke of Fate, that it admit
No sad nor guilty legends, you are it.
If good and lovely were not one, of both
You were the transcript, and originall,
The Elements, the Parent, and the Growth,
And every peece of you, is both their All,
So’intire are all your deeds, and you, that you
Must do the same thinge still; you cannot two.
But these (as nice thinne Schoole divinity
Serves heresie to furder or represse)
Tast of Poëtique rage, or flattery,
And need not, where all hearts one truth professe;
Oft from new proofes, and new phrase, new doubts grow,
As strange attire aliens the men wee know.
Leaving then busie praise, and all appeale,
To higher Courts, senses de
cree is true,
The Mine, the Magazine, the Commonweale,
The story of beauty,’in Twicknam is, and you.
Who hath seene one, would both; As, who had bin
In Paradise, would seeke the Cherubin.
T’HAVE WRITTEN THEN
T’have written then, when you writ, seem’d to mee
Worst of spirituall vices, Simony,
And not t’have written then, seemes little lesse
Then worst of civill vices, thanklessenesse.
In this, my debt I seem’d loath to confesse,
In that, I seem’d to shunne beholdingnesse.
But ’tis not soe, 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, then before.
Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are showne,
May not I yeeld (not gold) but coale or stone?
Temples were not demolish’d, though prophane:
Here Peter Joves, there Paul hath Dian’s Fane.
So whether my hymnes you admit or chuse,
In me you’have hallowed a Pagan Muse,
And denizend a stranger, who mistaught
By blamers of the times they mard, hath sought
Vertues in corners, which now bravely doe
Shine in the worlds best part, or all It; You.
I have been told, that vertue’in Courtiers hearts
Suffers an Ostracisme, and departs.
Profit, ease, fitnesse, plenty, bid it goe,
But whither, only knowing you, I know;
Your (or you) vertue two vast uses serves,
It ransomes one sex, and one Court preserves;
There’s nothing but your worth, which being true,
Is knowne 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 bee,
Stoop, others ills to meditate with mee.
Oh! to confesse wee know not what we should,
Is halfe excuse, wee know not what we would.
Lightnesse depresseth us, emptinesse fills,
We sweat and faint, yet still goe downe the hills;
As new Philosophy arrests the Sunne,
And bids the passive earth about it runne,
So wee have dull’d our minde, it hath no ends;
Onely the bodie’s busie, and pretends;
As dead low earth ecclipses and controules