by John Donne
To make the doubt clear that no woman’s true,
Was it my fate to prove it strong in you?
Thought I but one had breathed purest air,
And must she needs be false because she’s fair?
Is it your beauty’s mark, or of your youth,
Or your perfection, not to study truth?
Or think you heaven is deaf, or hath no eyes?
Or those it hath smile at your perjuries?
Are vows so cheap with women, or the matter
[10] Whereof they’are made, that they are writ in water,
And blown away with wind? Or doth their breath
(Both hot and cold) at once make life and death?
Who could have thought so many accents sweet
Formed into words, so many sighs should meet
As from our hearts, so many oaths and tears
Sprinkled among (all sweeter by our fears
And the divine impression of stol’n kisses,
That sealed the rest), should now prove empty blisses?
Did you draw bonds, to forfeit? Sign, to break?
[20] Or must we read you quite from what you speak,
And find the truth out the wrong way? Or must
He first desire you false, would wish you just?
O, I profane, though most of women be
This kind of beast, my thought shall except thee;
My dearest love, though froward jealousy
With circumstance might urge thy’inconstancy,
Sooner I’ll think the sun will cease to cheer
The teeming earth, and that forget to bear,
Sooner that rivers will run back, or Thames
[30] With ribs of ice in June would bind his streams,
Or Nature, by whose strength the world endures,
Would change her course, before you alter yours;
But, O, that treacherous breast to whom weak you
Did trust our counsels, and we both may rue,
Having his falsehood found too late, ’twas he
That made me cast you guilty, and you me,
Whil’st he, black wretch, betrayed each simple word
We spake unto the cunning of a third.
Curst may he be that so our love hath slain,
[40] And wander on the earth, wretched as Cain,
Wretched as he, and not deserve least pity;
In plaguing him, let misery be witty,
Let all eyes shun him, and he shun each eye,
Till he be noisome as his infamy.
May he without remorse deny God thrice,
And not be trusted more on his soul’s price;
And after all self-torment, when he dies,
May wolves tear out his heart, vultures his eyes,
Swine eat his bowels, and his falser tongue,
[50] That uttered all, be to some raven flung,
And let his carrion corpse be’a longer feast
To the king’s dogs than any other beast.
Now have I cursed, let us our love revive;
In me the flame was never more alive.
I could begin again to court and praise,
And in that pleasure lengthen the short days
Of my life’s lease, like painters that do take
Delight, not in made work, but whiles they make.
I could renew those times when first I saw
[60] Love in your eyes, that gave my tongue the law
To like what you liked; and at masks and plays
Commend the self-same actors, the same ways;
Ask how you did, and often with intent
Of being officious, be impertinent.
All which were such soft pastimes as in these
Love was subtly catched, as a disease;
But being got, it is a treasure sweet
Which to defend is harder than to get;
And ought not be profaned on either part,
[70] For though ’tis got by chance, ’tis kept by art.
Elegy 17. Variety
The heavens rejoice in motion, why should I
Abjure my so much loved variety,
And not with many, youth and love divide?
Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
The sun, that sitting in the chair of light
Sheds flame into what else so ever doth seem bright,
Is not contented at one sign to inn,
But ends his year and with a new begins.
All things do willingly in change delight,
[10] The fruitful mother of our appetite.
Rivers the clearer and more pleasing are
Where their fair spreading streams run wide and far,
And a dead lake that no strange bark doth greet
Corrupts itself and what doth live in it.
Let no man tell me such a one is fair,
And worthy all alone my love to share.
Nature in her hath done the liberal part
Of a kind mistress, and employed her art
To make her lovable, and I aver
[20] Him not humane that would turn back from her.
I love her well, and would, if need were, die
To do her service. But follows it that I
Must serve her only, when I may have choice?
The law is hard, and shall not have my voice.
The last I saw in all extremes is fair,
And holds me in the sunbeams of her hair;
Her nymph-like features such agreements have
That I could venture with her to the grave.
Another’s brown, I like her not the worse,
[30] Her tongue is soft, and takes me with discourse.
Others, for that they well descended are,
Do in my love obtain as large a share;
And though they be not fair, ’tis much with me
To win their love only for their degree.
And though I fail of my required ends,
The attempt is glorious and itself commends.
How happy were our sires in ancient times,
Who held plurality of loves no crime!
With them it was accounted charity
[40] To stir up race of all indifferently;
Kindreds were not exempted from the bands,
Which with the Persian still in usage stands.
Women were then no sooner asked than won,
And what they did was honest and well done.
But since this little honour hath been used,
Our weak credulity hath been abused.
The golden laws of nature are repealed,
Which our first fathers in such reverence held.
Our liberty reversed and charter’s gone,
[50] And we made servants to opinion,
A monster in no certain shape attired,
And whose original is much desired.
Formless at first, but growing on, it fashions,
And doth prescribe manners and laws to nations.
Here Love received immedicable harms,
And was despoiled of his daring arms.
A greater want than is his daring eyes,
He lost those awful wings with which he flies,
His sinewy bow and those immortal darts
[60] Wherewith he’is wont to bruise resisting hearts.
Only some few, strong in themselves and free,
Retain the seeds of ancient liberty,
Following that part of Love, although deprest,
And make a throne for him within their breast,
In spite of modern censure, him avowing
Their sovereign, all service him allowing.
Amongst which troop, although I am the least,
Yet equal in perfection with the best,
I glory in subjection of his hand,
[70] Nor ever did decline his least command,
For in whatever form the message came,
My heart did open and receive the flame;
But tim
e will in his course a point descry
When I this loved service must deny.
For our allegiance temporary is,
With firmer age returns our liberties.
What time in years and judgement we reposed
Shall not so easily be to change disposed
Nor to the art of several eyes obeying,
[80] But beauty with true worth securely weighing,
Which being found assembled in some one,
We’ll leave her ever, and love her alone.
Sappho to Philænis
Where is that holy fire, which verse is said
To have? Is that enchanting force decayed?
Verse that draws Nature’s works from Nature’s law,
Thee, her best work, to her work cannot draw.
Have my tears quenched my old poetic fire?
Why quenched they not as well that of desire?
Thoughts, my mind’s creatures, often are with thee,
But I, their maker, want their liberty.
Only thine image in my heart doth sit,
[10] But that is wax, and fires environ it.
My fires have driven, thine have drawn it hence;
And I am robbed of picture, heart, and sense.
Dwells with me still mine irksome memory,
Which both to keep and lose grieves equally.
That tells me’how fair thou art: thou art so fair
As gods, when gods to thee I do compare,
Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see
What things gods are, I say they’are like to thee.
For if we justly call each silly man
[20] A little world, what shall we call thee then?
Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair
As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are,
But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye only
Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye.
Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never,
As thou wast, art, and, O, may’st be ever.
Here lovers swear in their idolatry,
That I am such, but grief discolours me.
And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove
[30] My beauty, and make me unworthy of thy love.
Plays some soft boy with thee, O, there wants yet
A mutual feeling which should sweeten it.
His chin, a thorny hairy’unevenness
Doth threaten, and some daily change possess.
Thy body is a natural paradise
In whose self, unmanured, all pleasure lies,
Nor needs perfection; why should’st thou then
Admit the tillage of a harsh, rough man?
Men leave behind them that which their sin shows,
[40] And are as thieves traced, which rob when it snows.
But of our dalliance no more signs there are
Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air.
And between us all sweetness may be had,
All, all that Nature yields, or art can add.
My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two,
But so as thine from one another do;
And, O, no more; the likeness being such,
Why should they not alike in all parts touch?
Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies;
[50] Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs?
Likeness begets such strange self-flattery
That touching myself, all seems done to thee.
Myself I’embrace, and mine own hands I kiss,
And amorously thank myself for this.
Me in my glass, I call thee; but alas,
When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass.
O cure this loving madness, and restore
Me to me; thee, my half, my all, my more.
So may thy cheeks’ red outwear scarlet dye,
[60] And their white, whiteness of the galaxy,
So may thy mighty’amazing beauty move
Envy’in all women, and in all men, love,
And so be change and sickness far from thee,
As thou by coming near, keep’st them from me.
The Epithalamions or Marriage Songs
An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song, on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine Being Married on St Valentine’s Day
I
Hail Bishop Valentine whose day this is;
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners.
Thou marriest every year
The lyric lark and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love ,
The household bird with the red stomacher.
Thou mak’st the blackbird speed as soon
[10] As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon;
The husband cock looks out and straight is sped,
And meets his wife which brings her featherbed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine,
This day which might inflame thyself, Old Valentine.
II
Till now, thou warmed’st with multiplying loves
Two larks, two sparrows, or two doves;
All that is nothing unto this,
For thou this day couplest two phoenixes;
Thou mak’st a taper see
[20] What the sun never saw, and what the ark
(Which was of fowls and beasts, the cage and park)
Did not contain, one bed contains through thee,
Two phoenixes whose joined breasts
Are unto one another mutual nests,
Where motion kindles such fires as shall give
Young phoenixes, and yet the old shall live,
Whose love and courage never shall decline,
But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine.
III
Up then fair phoenix-bride, frustrate the sun.
[30] Thyself from thine affection
Tak’st warmth enough, and from thine eye
All lesser birds will take their jollity.
Up, up, fair bride, and call,
Thy stars from out their several boxes, take
Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make
Thyself a constellation of them all,
And by their blazing signify
That a great princess falls but doth not die.
Be thou a new star that to us portends
[40] Ends of much wonder, and be thou those ends.
Since thou dost this day in new glory shine,
May all men date records from this, thy Valentine.
IV
Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame
Meeting another grows the same,
So meet thy Frederick, and so
To an inseparable union grow.
Since separation
Falls not on such things as are infinite,
Nor things which are but one can disunite,
[50] You’are twice inseparable, great, and one.
Go then to where the bishop stays
To make you one his way, which diverse ways
Must be effected; and when all is past,
And that you’are one by hearts and hands made fast,
You two have one way left yourselves to’entwine,
Besides this Bishop’s knot of Bishop Valentine.
V
But O, what ails the sun that here he stays
Longer today than other days?
Stays he new light from these to get,
[60] And, finding here such stars, is loath to set?
And why do you two walk
So slowly paced in this procession?
Is all your care but to be looked upon,
And be to others spectacle and talk?
The feast with gluttonous delays
Is eaten, and too long their meat they praise;
The masker
s come too late, and,’I think, will stay
Like fairies till the cock crow them away.
Alas, did not antiquity assign
[70] A night as well as day to thee, O Valentine?
VI
They did, and night is come; and yet we see
Formalities retarding thee.
What mean these ladies which (as though
They were to take a clock in pieces) go
So nicely’about the bride?
A bride, before a good night could be said,
Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,
As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied.
But now she’is laid; what though she be?
[80] Yet there are more delays, for where is he?
He comes, and passes through sphere after sphere,
First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere.
Let not this day then, but this night be thine,
Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine.
VII
Here lies a she Sun, and a he Moon here;
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both, and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe.
And yet they do, but are
[90] So just and rich in that coin which they pay
That neither would, nor needs forbear nor stay;
Neither desires to be spared, nor to spare.
They quickly pay their debt, and then
Take no acquittances but pay again;
They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall
No such occasion to be liberal.
More truth, more courage in these two do shine,
Than all thy turtles have, and sparrows, Valentine.
VIII
And by this act of these two phoenixes
[100] Nature again restorèd is,
For since these two are two no more,
There’s but one phoenix still as was before.
Rest now at last, and we,
As satyrs watch the sun’s uprise, will stay
Waiting when your eyes opened let out day,
Only desired because your face we see.
Others, near you, shall whispering speak,
And wagers lay at which side day will break,
And win by’observing then whose hand it is
[110] That opens first a curtain, hers or his.
This will be tried tomorrow after nine,
Till which hour we thy day enlarge, O Valentine.
Epithalamion Made at Lincoln’s Inn
The sunbeams in the east are spread,
Leave, leave, fair bride, your solitary bed,
No more shall you return to it alone.
It nurseth sadness and your body’s print,