Song

GO and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devils foot;

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights

Till Age snow white hairs on thee;

Thou, when thou return'st wilt tell me

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one let me know;

Such a pilgrimage were sweet.

Yet do not; I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet.

Though she were true when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

John Donne

A Valediction: of Weeping

LET me pour forth

My tears before thy face, whil'st I stay here,

For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,

And by this Mintage they are something worth,

For thus they be

Pregnant of thee;

Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,

When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,

So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

On a round ball

A workman that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia,

And quickly make that, which was nothing, All,

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world by that impression grow,

Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow

This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more than Moon,

Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,

Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear

To teach the sea, what it may do too soon;

Let not the wind

Example find,

To do me more harm, than it purposeth;

Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,

Who e'r sighs most, is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.

John Donne

A Lecture upon the Shadow

STAND still, and I will read to thee

A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.

These three hours that we have spent,

Walking here, two shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd.

But, now the sun is just above our head,

We do those shadows tread,

And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd.

So whilst our infant loves did grow,

Disguises did, and shadows, flow

From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so.

That love has not attain'd the high'st degree,

Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,

We shall new shadows make the other way.

As the first were made to blind

Others, these which come behind

Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.

If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,

To me thou, falsely, thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.

The morning shadows wear away,

But these grow longer all the day;

But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,

And his first minute, after noon, is night.

John Donne

Love's Alchemy

SOME that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,

Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;

    I have lov'd, and got, and told,

But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

I should not find that hidden mystery.

    Oh, 'tis imposture all!

And as no chemic yet th'elixir got,

    But glorifies his pregnant pot

    If by the way to him befall

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,

    So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,

    But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,

Shall we for this vain bubble's shadow pay?

    Ends love in this, that my man

Can be as happy'as I can, if he can

Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?

    That loving wretch that swears

'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,

    Which he in her angelic finds,

    Would swear as justly that he hears,

In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.

    Hope not for mind in women; at their best

    Sweetness and wit, they'are but mummy, possess'd.

John Donne

A Nocturnall Upon St. Lucies Day

Being the Shortest Day

TIS the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,

Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,

The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;

The worlds whole sap is sunke:

The generall balme th' hydroptique earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee

At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:

For I am every dead thing,

In whom love wrought new Alchimie.

For his art did expresse

A quintessence even from nothingnesse,

From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:

He ruin'd mee, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,

Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;

I, by loves limbecke, am the grave

Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood

Have wee two wept, and so

Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two Chaosses, when we did show

Care to ought else; and often absences

Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;

Were I a man, that I were one,

I needs must know; I should preferre,

If I were any beast,

Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,

And love; All, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.

You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne

At this time to the Goat is runne

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all;

Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,

Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call

This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this

Bothe the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

John Donne

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

AS virtuous men passe mildly away,

And whisper to their soules, to goe,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

The breath goes now, and some say, no;

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,

T'were prophanation of our joyes

To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harmes and feares,

Men reckon what it did and meant,

But trepidation of the speares,

Though greater farre, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love

(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refin'd,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,

Though I must goe, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiffe twin compasses are two,

Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th' other doe.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth rome,

It leanes, andhearkens after it,

And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must

Like th' other foot, obliquely runne;

Thy firmnes drawes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begunne.

John Donne

Sonnet Cycle for Lady Magdalen

To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: Of St. Mary Magdalen

HER of your name, whose fair inheritance

Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo:

An active faith so highly did advance,

That she once knew, more than the Church did know,

The Resurrection; so much good there is

Deliver'd of her, that some Fathers be

Loth to believe one Woman could do this;

But think these Magdalens were two or three.

Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:

To their Devotion, add your Innocence;

Take so much of th'example, as of the name;

The latter half; and in some recompence

That they did harbour Christ himself, a Guest,

Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addresst.

1. La Corona

Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,

Weav'd in my low devout melancholie,

Thou which of good, hast, yea art treasury,

All changing unchang'd Antient of dayes;

But doe not, with vile crowne of fraile bayes,

Reward my muses white sincerity,

But what thy thorny crowne gain'd, that give mee,

The ends of Glory, which doth flower alwayes;

The ends crowne our workes, but thou crown'st our ends,

For, at our end begins our endlesse rest;

The first last end, now zealously possest,

With a strong sober thirst, my soule attends.

'Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,

Salvation to all that will is nigh.

2. Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which alwayes is All every where,

Which cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,

Loe, faithfull Virgin, yeelds himselfe to lye

In prison in thy wombe; and though he there

Can take no sinne, nor thou give, yet he'will weare

Taken from thence, flesh, which deaths force may trie.

Ere by the spheares time was created, thou

Wast in his minde, who is thy Sonne, and Brother;

Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yea thou art now

Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother;

Thou'hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,

Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe.

3. Nativitie

Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe,

Now leaves his welbelov'd imprisonment,

There he hath made himselfe to his intent

Weake enough, now into our world to come;

But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th'Inne no roome?

Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,

Starres, and wisemen will travell to prevent

Th'effect of Herods jealous generall doome.

Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he

Which fils all place, yet none hold him, doth lye?

Was not his pity towrds thee wondrous high,

That would have need to be pittied by thee?

Kisse him, and with him into Egypt goe,

With his kinde mother, who partakes thy woe.

4. Temple

With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe,

Joseph turne backe; see where your child doth sit,

Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,

Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow;

The Word but lately could not speake, and loe

It sodenly speakes wonders, whence comes it,

That all which was, and all which should be writ,

A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?

His Godhead was not soule to his manhood,

Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse,

But as for one which hath a long taske, 'tis good,

With the Sunne to beginne his businesse,

He in his ages morning thus began

By miracles exceeding power of man.

5. Crucifying

By miracles exceeding power of man,

Hee faith in some, envie in some begat,

For, what weake spirits admire, ambitious, hate;

In both affections many to him ran,

But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,

Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,

Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate,

Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to a span,

Nay to an inch. Loe, where condemned hee

Beares his owne crosse, with paine, yet by and by

When it beares him, he must beare more and die.

Now thou art lifted up, draw mee to thee,

And at thy death giving such liberall dole,

Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule.

6. Resurrection

Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule.

Shall (though she now be in extreme degree

Too stony hard, and yet to fleshly,) bee

Freed by that drop, from being starv'd, hard or foule,

And life, by this death abled, shall controule

Death, whom thy death slue; nor shall to mee

Feare of first or last death, bring miserie,

If in thy little booke my name thou enroule,

Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,

But made that there, of which and for which 'twas;

Nor can by other meanes be glorified.

May then sinnes sleep, and deaths soone from me passe,

That wak't from both, I againe risen may

Salute the last, and everlasting day.

7. Ascention

Salute the last, and everlasting day,

Joy at the uprising of this Sunne, and Sonne,

Yee whose just teares, or tribulation

Have purely washt, or burnt your drossie clay;

Behold the Highest, parting hence away,

Lightens the darke clouds, which hee treads upon,

Nor doth hee by ascending, show alone,

But first hee, and hee first enters the way.

O strong Ramme, which hast batter'd heaven for mee,

Mild Lambe, which with thy blood, hast mark'd the path;

Bright Torch, which shin'st that I the way may see

Oh, with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath,

And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,

Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God

BATTER my heart, three-personed God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town to another due,

Labor to admit to you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lovéd fain

But am betrothed unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne