John Donne Selected Poems-4

A FEVER.

O ! DO 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.

But yet thou canst not die, I know ;

To leave this world behind, is death ;

But when thou from this world wilt go,

The whole world vapours with thy breath.

Or if, when thou, the worlds soul, gost,

It stay, tis but thy carcase then ;

The fairest woman, but thy ghost,

But corrupt worms, the worthiest men.

O wrangling schools, that search what fire

Shall burn this world, had none the wit

Unto this knowledge to aspire,

That this her feaver might be it?

And yet she cannot waste by this,

Nor long bear this torturing wrong,

For more corruption needful is,

To fuel such a fever long.

These burning fits but meteors be,

Whose matter in thee is soon spent ;

Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee,

Are unchangeable firmament.

Yet twas of my mind, seizing thee,

Though it in thee cannot perséver ;

For I had rather owner be

Of thee one hour, than all else ever.

AIR AND ANGELS.

TWICE or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name ;

So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame

Angels affect us oft, and worshippd be.

Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.

But since my soul, whose child love is,

Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,

More subtle than the parent is

Love must not be, but take a body too ;

And therefore what thou wert, and who,

I bid Love ask, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,

And so more steadily to have gone,

With wares which would sink admiration,

I saw I had loves pinnace overfraught ;

Thy every hair for love to work upon

Is much too much ; some fitter must be sought ;

For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere ;

Then as an angel face and wings

Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,

So thy love may be my loves sphere ;

Just such disparity

As is twixt airs and angels purity,

Twixt womens love, and mens, will ever be.

BREAK OF DAY.

STAY, O sweet, and do not rise ;

The light that shines comes from thine eyes ;

The day breaks not, it is my heart,

Because that you and I must part.

Stay, or else my joys will die,

And perish in their infancy.

[ANOTHER OF THE SAME.]

TIS true, tis day ; what though it be?

O, wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because tis light?

Did we lie down because twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye ;

If it could speak as well as spy,

This were the worst that it could say,

That being well I fain would stay,

And that I loved my heart and honour so

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

Must business thee from hence remove?

O ! thats the worst disease of love,

The poor, the foul, the false, love can

Admit, but not the busied man.

He which hath business, and makes love, doth do

Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

THE ANNIVERSARY.

ALL kings, and all their favourites,

All glory of honours, beauties, wits,

The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,

Is elder by a year now than it was

When 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,

But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse ;

If one might, death were no divorce.

Alas ! as well as other princes, we

—Who prince enough in one another be—

Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,

Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears ;

But souls where nothing dwells but love

—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove

This or a love increasèd there above,

When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

And then we shall be throughly blest ;

But now no more than all the rest.

Here upon earth were kings, and none but we

Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.

Who is so safe as we? where none can do

Treason to us, except one of us two.

True and false fears let us refrain,

Let us love nobly, and live, and add again

Years and years unto years, till we attain

To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign.

A VALEDICTION OF MY NAME, IN THE WINDOW.

I.

MY name engraved herein

Doth contribute my firmness to this glass,

Which ever since that charm hath been

As hard, as that which graved it was ;

Thine eye will give it price enough, to mock

The diamonds of either rock.

II.

Tis much that glass should be

As all-confessing, and through-shine as I ;

Tis more that it shows thee to thee,

And clear reflects thee to thine eye.

But all such rules loves magic can undo ;

Here you see me, and I am you.

III.

As no one point, nor dash,

Which are but accessories to this name,

The showers and tempests can outwash

So shall all times find me the same ;

You this entireness better may fulfill,

Who have the pattern with you still.

IV.

Or if too hard and deep

This learning be, for a scratchd name to teach,

It as a given deaths head keep,

Lovers mortality to preach ;

Or think this ragged bony name to be

My ruinous anatomy.

V.

Then, as all my souls be

Emparadised 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 vein

Which tile this house, will come again.

VI.

Till my return repair

And recompact my scatterd body so,

As all the virtuous powers which are

Fixd in the stars are said to flow

Into such characters as gravèd be

When these stars have supremacy.

VII.

So since this name was cut,

When love and grief their exaltation had,

No door gainst this names influence shut.

As much more loving, as more sad,

Twill make thee ; and thou shouldst, till I return,

Since I die daily, daily mourn.

VIII.

When thy inconsiderate hand

Flings open this casement, with my trembling name,

To look on one, whose wit or land

New battery to thy heart may frame,

Then think this name alive, and that thou thus

In it offendst my Genius.

IX.

And when thy melted maid,

Corrupted by thy lovers gold and page,

His letter at thy pillow hath laid,

Disputed it, and tamed thy rage,

And thou beginst to thaw towards him, for this,

May my name step in, and hide his.

X.

And if this treason go

To an overt act and that thou write again,

In superscribing, this name flow

Into thy fancy from the pane ;

So, in forgetting thou remembrest right,

And unaware to me shalt write.

XI.

But glass and lines must be

No means our firm substantial love to keep ;

Near death inflicts this lethargy,

And this I murmur in my sleep ;

Inpute this idle talk, to that I go,

For dying men talk often so.