John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  A TALE OF A CITIZEN AND HIS WIFE.

  THE EXPOSTULATION.

  ON HIS MISTRESS.

  VARIETY

  LOVES PROGRESS

  TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED.

  LOVE’S WAR

  ELEGY I.

  JEALOUSY.

  FOND woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,

  And yet complain’st of his great jealousy;

  If, swollen with poison, he lay in his last bed,

  His body with a sere bark covered,

  Drawing his breath as thick and short as can

  The nimblest crocheting musician,

  Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew

  His soul out of one hell into a new,

  Made deaf with his poor kindred’s howling cries,

  Begging with few feign’d tears great legacies, —

  Thou wouldst not weep, but jolly, and frolic be,

  As a slave, which to-morrow should be free.

  Yet weep’st thou, when thou seest him hungerly

  Swallow his own death, heart’s-bane jealousy?

  O give him many thanks, he’s courteous,

  That in suspecting kindly warneth us.

  We must not, as we used, flout openly,

  In scoffing riddles, his deformity;

  Nor at his board together being sat,

  With words, nor touch, scarce looks, adulterate.

  Nor when he, swollen and pamper’d with great fare,

  Sits down and snorts, caged in his basket chair,

  Must we usurp his own bed any more,

  Nor kiss and play in his house, as before.

  Now I see many dangers; for it is

  His realm, his castle, and his diocese.

  But if — as envious men, which would revile

  Their prince, or coin his gold, themselves exile

  Into another country, and do it there —

  We play in another house, what should we fear?

  There we will scorn his household policies,

  His silly plots, and pensionary spies,

  As the inhabitants of Thames’ right side

  Do London’s mayor, or Germans the Pope’s pride.

  ELEGY II.

  THE ANAGRAM.

  MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for she

  Hath all things, whereby others beauteous be;

  For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great;

  Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet;

  Though they be dim, yet she is light enough;

  And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is tough;

  What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair’s red,

  Give her thine, and she hath a maidenhead.

  These things are beauty’s elements; where these

  Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please.

  If red and white, and each good quality

  Be in thy wench, ne’er ask where it doth lie.

  In buying things perfumed, we ask, if there

  Be musk and amber in it, but not where.

  Though all her parts be not in th’ usual place,

  She hath yet an anagram of a good face.

  If we might put the letters but one way,

  In that lean dearth of words, what could we say?

  When by the gamut some musicians make

  A perfect song, others will undertake,

  By the same gamut changed, to equal it.

  Things simply good can never be unfit;

  She’s fair as any, if all be like her;

  And if none be, then she is singular.

  All love is wonder; if we justly do

  Account her wonderful, why not lovely too?

  Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies;

  Choose this face, changed by no deformities.

  Women are all like angels; the fair be

  Like those which fell to worse; but such as she,

  Like to good angels, nothing can impair:

  ‘Tis less grief to be foul, than to have been fair.

  For one night’s revels, silk and gold we choose,

  But, in long journeys, cloth and leather use.

  Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say,

  There is best land, where there is foulest way.

  Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be,

  If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy!

  Here needs no spies, nor eunuchs; her commit

  Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmoset.

  When Belgia’s cities the round country drowns,

  That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns,

  So doth her face guard her; and so, for thee,

  Which forced by business, absent oft must be,

  She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night;

  Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem white;

  Who, though seven years she in the stews had laid,

  A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid;

  And though in childbed’s labour she did lie,

  Midwives would swear ‘twere but a tympany;

  Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less

  Than witches, which impossibles confess;

  One like none, and liked of none, fittest were;

  For things in fashion every man will wear.

  ELEGY III.

  CHANGE.

  ALTHOUGH thy hand and faith, and good works too,

  Have sealed thy love which nothing should undo,

  Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy

  Confirm thy love, yet much, much I fear thee.

  Women are like the arts, forced unto none,

  Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown.

  If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,

  Another fowler using these means, as I,

  May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,

  Women are made for men, not him nor me.

  Foxes, and goats — all beasts — change when they please.

  Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,

  Be bound to one man, and did nature then

  Idly make them apter to endure than men?

  They’re our clogs, not their own; if a man be

  Chain’d to a galley, yet the galley’s free.

  Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed corn there,

  And yet allows his ground more corn should bear;

  Though Danuby into the sea must flow,

  The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po.

  By nature, which gave it, this liberty

  Thou lovest, but O! canst thou love it and me?

  Likeness glues love; and if that thou so do,

  To make us like and love, must I change too?

  More than thy hate, I hate it; rather let me

  Allow her change, then change as oft as she,

  And so not teach, but force my opinion,

  To love not any one, nor every one.

  To live in one land is captivity,

  To run all countries a wild roguery.

  Waters stink soon, if in one place they bide,

  And in the vast sea are more putrified;

  But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this

  Never look back, but the next bank do kiss,

  Then are they purest; change is the nursery

  Of music, joy, life and eternity.

  ELEGY IV.

  THE PERFUME.

  ONCE, and but once, found in thy company,

  All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;

  And as a thief at bar is question’d there

  By all the men that have been robb’d that year,

  So am I — by this traiterous means surprized —

  By thy hydroptic father catechized.

  Though he had wont to search with glazèd eyes,

  As though he came to kill a cockatrice;

  Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove

  Thy beauty’s beauty, and food of our love,

  Hope of
his goods, if I with thee were seen,

  Yet close and secret, as our souls, we’ve been.

  Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie

  Still buried in her bed, yet will not die,

  Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight,

  And watch thy entries and returns all night;

  And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind,

  Doth search what rings and armlets she can find;

  And kissing notes the colour of thy face;

  And fearing lest thou’rt swollen, doth thee embrace;

  To try if thou long, doth name strange meats;

  And notes thy paleness, blushing, sighs, and sweats;

  And politicly will to thee confess

  The sins of her own youth’s rank lustiness;

  Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move

  Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.

  Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprites

  Oft skipp’d into our chamber, those sweet nights,

  And kiss’d, and ingled on thy father’s knee,

  Were bribed next day to tell what they did see;

  The grim-eight-foot-high-iron-bound serving-man,

  That oft names God in oaths, and only then,

  He that, to bar the first gate, doth as wide

  As the great Rhodian Colossus stride

  — Which, if in hell no other pains there were,

  Makes me fear hell, because he must be there —

  Though by thy father he were hired to this,

  Could never witness any touch or kiss.

  But O! too common ill, I brought with me

  That, which betray’d me to mine enemy,

  A loud perfume, which at my entrance cried

  Even at thy father’s nose; so were we spied.

  When, like a tyrant King, that in his bed

  Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered,

  Had it been some bad smell, he would have thought

  That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought;

  But as we in our isle imprisoned,

  Where cattle only and diverse dogs are bred,

  The precious unicorns strange monsters call,

  So thought he good strange, that had none at all.

  I taught my silks their whistling to forbear;

  Even my oppress’d shoes dumb and speechless were;

  Only thou bitter sweet, whom I had laid

  Next me, me traiterously hast betray’d,

  And unsuspected hast invisibly

  At once fled unto him, and stay’d with me.

  Base excrement of earth, which dost confound

  Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound!

  By thee the silly amorous sucks his death

  By drawing in a leprous harlot’s breath;

  By thee the greatest stain to man’s estate

  Falls on us, to be call’d effeminate;

  Though you be much loved in the prince’s hall,

  There things that seem exceed substantial;

  Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well,

  Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell;

  You’re loathsome all, being taken simply alone;

  Shall we love ill things join’d, and hate each one?

  If you were good, your good doth soon decay;

  And you are rare; that takes the good away:

  All my perfumes I give most willingly

  To embalm thy father’s corpse; what? will he die?

  ELEGY V.

  HIS PICTURE.

  HERE take my picture; though I bid farewell,

  Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.

  ‘Tis like me now, but I dead, ‘twill be more,

  When we are shadows both, than ‘twas before.

  When weatherbeaten I come back; my hand

  Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann’d,

  My face and breast of haircloth, and my head

  With care’s harsh sudden hoariness o’erspread,

  My body a sack of bones, broken within,

  And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;

  If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,

  So foul and coarse, as, O! I may seem then,

  This shall say what I was; and thou shalt say,

  “ Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?

  Or do they reach his judging mind, that he

  Should now love less, what he did love to see?

  That which in him was fair and delicate,

  Was but the milk, which in love’s childish state

  Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough

  To feed on that, which to weak tastes seems tough.”

  ELEGY VI.

  O, LET ME NOT SERVE SO, AS THOSE MEN SERVE

  O, LET me not serve so, as those men serve,

  Whom honour’s smokes at once fatten and starve,

  Poorly enrich’d with great men’s words or looks;

  Nor so write my name in thy loving books

  As those idolatrous flatterers, which still

  Their princes’ style with many realms fulfil,

  Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway.

  Such services I offer as shall pay

  Themselves; I hate dead names. O, then let me

  Favourite in ordinary, or no favourite be.

  When my soul was in her own body sheathed,

  Nor yet by oaths betroth’d, nor kisses breathed

  Into my purgatory, faithless thee,

  Thy heart seemed wax, and steel thy constancy.

  So, careless flowers strew’d on the water’s face

  The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace,

  Yet drown them; so the taper’s beamy eye

  Amorously twinkling beckons the giddy fly,

  Yet burns his wings; and such the devil is,

  Scarce visiting them who are entirely his.

  When I behold a stream, which from the spring

  Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring,

  Or in a speechless slumber, calmly ride

  Her wedded channel’s bosom, and there chide,

  And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough

  Do but stoop down to kiss her upmost brow;

  Yet, if her often gnawing kisses win

  The traitorous banks to gape, and let her in,

  She rusheth violently, and doth divorce

  Her from her native and her long-kept course,

  And roars, and braves it, and in gallant scorn,

  In flattering eddies promising return,

  She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry;

  Then say I; “That is she, and this am I.”

  Yet let not thy deep bitterness beget

  Careless despair in me, for that will whet

  My mind to scorn; and O, love dull’d with pain

  Was ne’er so wise, nor well arm’d, as disdain.

  Then with new eyes I shall survey thee, and spy

  Death in thy cheeks, and darkness in thine eye,

  Though hope bred faith and love; thus taught, I shall,

  As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall;

  My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly

  I will renounce thy dalliance; and when I

  Am the recusant, in that resolute state

  What hurts it me to be excommunicate?

  ELEGY VII.

  NATURE’S LAY IDIOT, I TAUGHT THEE TO LOVE

  NATURE’S lay idiot, I taught thee to love,

  And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove

  Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand

  The mystic language of the eye nor hand;

  Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air

  Of sighs, and say, “This lies, this sounds despair”;

  Nor by th’ eye’s water cast a malady

  Desperately hot, or changing feverously.

  I had
not taught thee then the alphabet

  Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set

  And bound up, might with speechless secrecy

  Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.

  Remember since all thy words used to be

  To every suitor, “Ay, if my friends agree;”

  Since household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,

  Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach;

  And since an hour’s discourse could scarce have made

  One answer in thee, and that ill array’d

  In broken proverbs, and torn sentences.

  Thou art not by so many duties his —

  That from th’ world’s common having sever’d thee,

  Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see —

  As mine; who have with amorous delicacies

  Refined thee into a blissful paradise.

  Thy graces and good works my creatures be;

  I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee;

  Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas!

  Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?

  Chafe wax for other’s seals? break a colt’s force,

  And leave him then, being made a ready horse?

  ELEGY VIII.

  THE COMPARISON.

  AS the sweet sweat of roses in a still,

  As that which from chafed musk cat’s pores doth trill,

  As the almighty balm of th’ early east,

  Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast;

  And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,

  They seem no sweat drops, but pearl carcanets.

  Rank sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles,

  Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,

  Or like the scum, which, by need’s lawless law

  Enforced, Sanserra’s starvèd men did draw

  From parboil’d shoes and boots, and all the rest

  Which were with any sovereign fatness blest;

  And like vile lying stones in saffron’d tin,

  Or warts, or wheals, it hangs upon her skin.

  Round as the world’s her head, on every side,

  Like to the fatal ball which fell on Ide;

  Or that whereof God had such jealousy,

  As for the ravishing thereof we die.

  Thy head is like a rough-hewn statue of jet,

  Where marks for eyes, nose, mouth, are yet scarce set;

  Like the first chaos, or flat seeming face

  Of Cynthia, when th’ earth’s shadows her embrace.

  Like Proserpine’s white beauty-keeping chest,

  Or Jove’s best fortune’s urn, is her fair breast.

  Thine’s like worm-eaten trunks, clothed in seal’s skin,

  Or grave, that’s dust without, and stink within.

  And like that slender stalk, at whose end stands