John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  Is far more busines, then this world is worth.

  The world is but a carcasse; thou art fed

  By it, but as a worme, that carcas bred;

  And why shouldst thou, poore worme, consider more,

  When this world will grow better then before,

  Then those thy fellow-wormes doe thinke vpone

  That carcasses last resurrectione.

  Forget this world, and scarse thinke of it so,

  As of old cloaths, cast off a yeere agoe.

  To be thus stupid as Alacrity;

  Men thus lethargique haue best Memory.

  Looke vpward; that’s towards her, whose happy state

  We now lament not, but congratulate.

  Shee, to whom all this world twas but a stage,

  Where all sat harkning how her youthfull age

  Should be emploid, because in all, shee did,

  Some Figure of the Golden times, was hid.

  Who could not lacke, what ere this world could giue,

  Because shee was the forme, that made it liue;

  Nor could complaine, that this world was vnfit,

  To be staid in, then when shee was in it;

  Shee that first tried indifferent desires

  By vertue, and vertue by religious fires,

  Shee to whose person Paradise adhear’d,

  As Courts to Princes, she whose eies enspheard

  Star-light inough, t’haue made the South controll,

  (Had shee beene there) the Starfull Northern Pole,

  Shee, shee is gone; shee is gone; when thou knowest this,

  What fragmentary rubbidge this world is.

  Thou knowest, and that it is not worth a thought;

  He honours it too much that thinkes it nought.

  Thinke then, My soule, that death is but a Groome,

  Contemplation of our state in our death-bed.

  Which brings a Taper to the outward roome,

  Whence thou spiest first a glimmering light,

  And after brings it nearer to thy sight:

  For such approches doth heauen make it in death.

  Thinke thy selfe labouring now with broken breath,

  And thinke those broken & soft Notes to bee

  Diuision, and thy happiest Harmonee.

  Thinke thee laid on thy death-bed, loose and slacke;

  And thinke that but vnbinding of a packe,

  To take one precious thing, thy soule, from thence.

  Thinke thy selfe parch’d with feuers violence,

  Anger thine Ague more, by calling it

  Thy Physicke; chide the slacknes of the fit.

  Thinke that thou hear’st thy knell, and thinke no more,

  But that, as Bels cal’d thee to Church before,

  So this, to the Triumphant Church, cals thee.

  Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee,

  And thinke that but for Legcies they thrust;

  Giue one thy Pride, to ‘another giue thy Lust:

  Giue them those sinnes which they gaue before,

  And trust th’immaculate blood to wash thy score.

  Thinke thy friends weeping round, and thinke that thay

  Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way.

  Thinke they confesse much in the world, amisse

  Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that,

  Which they from God, and Angels couer not.

  Thinke that they shourd thee vp, and thinke from thence

  They reinuest thee in white innocence.

  Thinke that thy body rots, and (if so lowe,

  Thy soule exhalted so, thy thoughts can goe.)

  Thinke thee a Prince, who of themselues create

  Wormes which insensibly deuoure their state.

  Thinke that they bury thee, and thinke that right

  Laies thee to sleepe but a Saint Lucies night.

  Thinke these things cheerfully: and if thou bee

  Drowsie or slacke, remember then that shee,

  She whose Complexion was so euen made,

  That which of her Ingredients should inuade

  The other three, no Feare, no Art could guesse:

  So farre were all remou’d from more or lesse.

  But as in Mithridate, or iust perfumes,

  Where all good things being met, no one presumes

  To gouerne, or to triumph on the rest,

  Onely because all were, no part was best.

  And as, though all doe know, that quantities

  Are made of lines, and lines from Points arise,

  None can these lines or quantities vnioynt,

  And say this is a line, or this a point,

  So though the Elements and Humors were

  In her, one could not say, this gouerns there.

  Whose euen constitution might haue worne

  Any disease to venter on the Sunne,

  Rather then her: and make a spirit feare

  That he to disuniting subiect were.

  To whose proportions if we would compare

  Cubes, th’are vnstable, Circles, Angulare,

  Shee who was such a Chaine, as Fate emploies

  To bring mankind, all Fortunes it enioyes,

  So fast, so euen wrought, as one would thinke,

  No accident, could threaten any linke,

  Shee, shee embrac’d a sicknesse, gaue it meat,

  The purest Blood, and Breath, that ere it eat.

  And hath taught vs that though a good man hath

  Title to Heauen, and plead it by his Faith,

  And though he may pretend a conquest, since

  Heauen was content to suffer violence,

  Yea though he plead a long possesion too,

  (For they’re in heauen on earth, who heauens workes do,)

  Though he had right, & power and place before,

  Yet Death must vsher, and vnlocke the doore.

  Thinke further on thy selfe, my soule, and thinke;

  How thou at first was made but in a sinke;

  Thinke that it argued some infermitee,

  That those two soules, which then thou foundst in mee,

  Thou fedst upon, and drewst into thee, both

  My second soule of sence, and first of growth.

  Thinke but how poore thou wast, how obnoxious;

  Whom a small lumpe of flesh could poyson thus.

  This curded milke, this poore vnlittered whelpe

  My body, could, beyound escape, or helpe,

  Infect thee with originall sinne, and thou

  Couldst neither then refuse, nor leaue it now.

  Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit,

  Which fixt to’a Pillar, or a Graue doth sit

  Bedded and Bath’d in all his Ordures, dwels

  So fowly as our soules, in their first-built Cels.

  Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie

  After, enabled but to sucke, and crie.

  Thinke, when t’was growne to most, t’was a poore Inne,

  A Prouince Pack’d vp in two yards of skinne.

  And that vsurped, or threatned with the rage

  Of sicknesses, or their true mother, Age.

  But thinke that Death hath now enfranchis’d thee,

  Her liberty by death.

  Thou hast thy’expansion now and libertee;

  Thinke that a rusty Peece, discharg’d, is flowen

  In peeces, and the bullet is his owne,

  And freely flies: This to thy soule allow,

  Thinke thy sheell broke, thinke thy Soule hatch’d but now.

  And think this slow-pac’d soule, which late did cleaue,

  To a’body, and went but by the bodies leaue,

  Twenty, perchance, or thirty mile a day,

  Dispatches in a minute all the way,

  Twixt Heauen, and Earth: shee staies not in the Ayre,

  To looke what Meteors there themselues prepare;

  Shee carries no desire to know, nor sense,

  Whether th’Ayrs mi
ddle Region be intense,

  For th’Element of fire, shee doth not know,

  Whether shee past by such a place or no;

  Shee baits not at the Moone, nor cares to trie,

  Whether in that new world, men liue, and die.

  Venus recards her not, to’enquire, now shee

  Can, (being one Star) Hesper, and Vesper bee,

  Hee that charm’d Argus eyes, sweet Mercury,

  Workes not on her, who now is growen al Ey;

  Who, if shee meete the body of the Sunne,

  Goes through, not staying till his course be runne;

  Who finds in Mars his Campe, no corps of Guard;

  Nor is by Ioue, nor by his father bard;

  But ere she can consider how she went,

  At once is at, and through the Firmament.

  And as these starres were but so many beades

  Strunge on one string, speed vndistinguish’d leades

  Her through those spheares, as through the beades, a string,

  Whose quicke succession makes it still one thing:

  As doth the Pith, which, least our Bodies slacke,

  Strings fast the little bones of necke, and backe;

  So by the soule doth death string Heauen and Earth.

  For when our soule enioyes this her third birth,

  (Creation gaue her one, a second, grace,)

  Heauen is as neare, and present to her face,

  As colours are, and obiects, in a roome

  Where darkenesse was before, when Tapers come.

  This must, my soule, thy long-short Progresse bee;

  To’aduance these thoughts, remember then, that shee

  Shee, whose faire body no such prison was,

  But that a soule might well be pleas’d to passe

  An age in her; she whose rich beauty lent

  Mintage to others beauties, for they went

  But for so much, as they were like to her;

  Shee, in whose body (if we dare prefer

  This low world, to so high a marke, as shee,)

  The Westerne treasure, Esterne spiceree,

  Europe, and Afrique, and the vnknowen rest

  Were easily found, or what in them was best;

  And when w’haue made this large Discoueree.

  Of all in her some one part then will bee

  Twenty such patts, whose plenty and riches is

  Inough to make twenty such worlds as this,

  Shee, whom they had knowne who did first betroth

  The Tutelar Angel, and assigned one, both

  To Nations, Cities, and to Companies,

  To Functions, Offices, and Dignities,

  And to each seuerall man, to him, and him,

  They would haue giuen her one for euery limme;

  Shee, of whose soule, if we may say, t’was Gold,

  Her body was th’Electrum, and did hold

  Many degrees of that; (we vnderstood

  Her by the sight, her pure and eloquent blood

  Spoke in her cheekes, and so distinctly wrought,

  That one might almost say, her body thought,

  Shee, shee, thus richly, & largely hous’d, is gone:

  & chides vs slow-pac’d snailes who crawl vpon

  Our prisons prison, earth, nor thinke vs well

  Longer, then whil’st we beare our brittle shell.

  But t’were but little to haue chang’d our roome,

  Her ignorance in this life and knowledge in the next.

  If, as we were in this our liuing Toombe

  Oppress’d with ignorance, we still were so,

  Poore soule in this thy flesh what do’st thou know.

  Thou know’st thy selfe so little, as thou know’st not,

  How thou didst die, nor how thou wast begot.

  Thou neither know’st, how thou at first came in,

  Nor how thou took’st the poyson of mans sin.

  Nor dost thou, (though thou knowst, that thou art so)

  By what way thou art made immortall, know.

  Thou art to narrow, wretch, to comprehend

  Euen thy selfe: yea though thou wouldst but bend

  To know thy body. Haue not all soules thought

  For many ages, that our body’is wrought

  Of Ayre, and Fire, and other Elements?

  And now they thinke of new ingredients.

  And one soule thinkes one, and another way

  Another thinkes, and ty’s an euen lay.

  Know’st thou but how the stone doth enter in

  The bladders Caue, and neuer brake the skin?

  Knowst thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow,

  Doth from one ventricle to th’other goe?

  And for the putrid stuffe, which thou dost spit,

  Knowst how thy lungs haue attracted it?

  There are no passages so that there is

  (For ought thou knowst) piercing of substances.

  And of those many opinions which men raise

  Of Nayles and Haires, dost thou know which to praise?

  What hope haue we to know our selves, when we

  Know not the least things, which for our vse be?

  We see in Authors, too stiffe to recant.

  A hundred controuersies of an Ant.

  And yet one watches, starues, freeses, and sweats,

  To know but Catechismes and Alphabets

  Of vnconcerning things, matters of fact;

  How others on our stage their parts did Act;

  What Cæsar did, yea, and what Cicero said.

  Why grasse is greene, or why our blood is red,

  Are mysteries which none haue reach’d vnto.

  In this low forme, poore soule what wilt thou doe?

  When wilt thou shake off this Pedantery,

  Of being thought by sense, and Fantasy

  Thou look’st through spectacles; small things seeme great,

  Below; But vp vnto the watch-towre get,

  And see all things despoyld of fallacies:

  Thou shalt not peepe though lattices of eies,

  Nor heare through Laberinths of eares, nor learne

  By circuit, or collections to discerne.

  In heauen thou straight know’st all, concerning it,

  And what concerns it not, shall straight forget.

  There thou (but in no other schoole) maist bee

  Perchance, as learned, and as full, as shee,

  Shee who all Libraries had throughly red

  At home, in her own thoughts, and practised

  So much good as would make as many more:

  Shee whose example they must all implore,

  Who would or doe, or thinke well, and confesse

  That aie the vertuous Actions they expresse,

  Are but a new, and worse edition,

  Of her some one thought, or one action:

  Shee, who in th’Art of knowing Heauen, was growen

  Here vpon Earth, to such perfection,

  That shee hath, euer since to Heauen shee came,

  (In a far fairer point,) but read the same:

  Shee, shee, not satisfied withall this waite,

  (For so much knowledge, as would ouer-fraite

  Another, did but Ballast her) is gone,

  As well t’enioy, as get perfectione.

  And cals vs after her, in that shee tooke,

  (Taking her selfe) our best, and worthiest booke.

  Returne not, my soule, from this extasee,

  Of our company in this life and in the next.

  And meditation of what thou shalt bee,

  To earthly thoughts, till it to thee appeare,

  With whom thy conuersation must be there.

  With whom wilt thou Conuerse? what station

  Canst thou choose out, free from infection,

  That will not giue thee theirs, nor drinke in thine?

  Shalt thou not finde a spungy slacke Diuine

  Drinke and sucke in th’Instructions of Great men,

 
; And for the word of God, vent them agen?

  Are there not some Courts, (And then, no things bee

  So like as Courts) which, in this let vs see,

  That wits and tongues of Libellars are weake,

  Because they doe more ill, then these can speake?

  The poyson’is gone though all, poysons affect

  Chiefly the cheefest parts, but some effect

  In Nailes, and Haires, yea excrements, will show,

  So wise the poyson of sinne, in the most low.

  Vp vp, my drowsie soule, where thy new eare

  Shall in the Angels songs no discord heare;

  Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid

  Ioy in not being that, which men haue said.

  Where shee is exalted more for being good,

  Then for her interest, of mother-hood.

  Vp to those Patriarckes, which did longer sit

  Expecting Christ, then they haue enioy’d him yet.

  Vp to those Prophets, which now gladly see

  Their Prophesies growen to be Historee.

  Vp to th’Apostles, who did brauely runne,

  All the Suns course, with more light then the Sunne.

  Vp to those Martyrs, who did calmely bleed

  Oyle to th’Apostles lamps, dew to their seed.

  Vp to those Virgins, who thoughts that almost

  They made ioyntenants with the Holy Ghost,

  If they to any should his Temple giue.

  Vp, vp, for in that squadron there doth liue

  Shee, who hath carried thether, new degrees

  Shee coynd, in this, that her impressions gaue

  To all our actions all the worth they haue:

  Shee gaue protections; the thoughts of her brest

  Satans rude Officers could nere arrest.

  As these prerogatiues being met in one,

  Made her a Church; and these two made her all.

  Shee who was all this All, and could not fall

  To worse, by company; (for she was still

  More Antidote, then all the world was ill,

  Shee, shee doth leaue it, and by Death, suruiue

  (As to their number) to their dignities.

  Shee, who being to her selfe, a state enioyd

  All royalties which any state emploid,

  For shee made wars, and triumph’d, reason still

  Did not ouerthrow, but rectifie her will:

  And shee made peace, for no peace is like this,

  That beauty and chastity together kisse:

  Shee did high iustice; for shee crucified

  Euery first motion of rebellious pride:

  And shee gaue pardons, and was liberall,

  For, onely her selfe except, shee pardond all:

  All this, in Heauen; whether who doth not striue

  The more, because shee’s there, he doth not know

  That accidentall ioyes in Heauen doe grow.