18 John Donne Songs and Sonnets

The Flea

  • MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
  • How little that which thou deniest me is ;
  • It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
  • And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
  • Thou know’st that this cannot be said
  • A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
  • Yet this enjoys before it woo,
  • And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
  • And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
  • O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
  • Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
  • This flea is you and I, and this
  • Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
  • Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
  • And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
  • Though use make you apt to kill me,
  • Let not to that self-murder added be,
  • And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
  • Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
  • Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
  • Wherein could this flea guilty be,
  • Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
  • Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
  • Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
  • ‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
  • Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
  • Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
  • The Good Morrow

  • I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
  • Did, till we loved ? were we not wean’d till then ?
  • But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly ?
  • Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den ?
  • ‘Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
  • If ever any beauty I did see,
  • Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
  • And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
  • Which watch not one another out of fear ;
  • For love all love of other sights controls,
  • And makes one little room an everywhere.
  • Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
  • Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
  • Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.
  • My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
  • And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
  • Where can we find two better hemispheres
  • Without sharp north, without declining west ?
  • Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally ;
  • If our two loves be one, or thou and I
  • Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
  • Song

  • GO and catch a falling star,
  • Get with child a mandrake root,
  • Tell me where all past years are,
  • Or who cleft the devil’s 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.
  • The Woman’s Constancy

  • NOW thou hast loved me one whole day,
  • To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say ?
  • Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow ?
  • Or say that now
  • We are not just those persons which we were ?
  • Or that oaths made in reverential fear
  • Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear ?
  • Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
  • So lovers’ contracts, images of those,
  • Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose ?
  • Or, your own end to justify,
  • For having purposed change and falsehood, you
  • Can have no way but falsehood to be true ?
  • Vain lunatic, against these ‘scapes I could
  • Dispute, and conquer, if I would ;
  • Which I abstain to do,
  • For by to-morrow I may think so too.
  • The Undertaking

  • Death be not proud, though some have called thee
  • I HAVE done one braver thing
  • Than all the Worthies did ;
  • And yet a braver thence doth spring,
  • Which is, to keep that hid.
  • It were but madness now to impart
  • The skill of specular stone,
  • When he, which can have learn’d the art
  • To cut it, can find none.
  • So, if I now should utter this,
  • Others—because no more
  • Such stuff to work upon, there is—
  • Would love but as before.
  • But he who loveliness within
  • Hath found, all outward loathes,
  • For he who color loves, and skin,
  • Loves but their oldest clothes.
  • If, as I have, you also do
  • Virtue in woman see,
  • And dare love that, and say so too,
  • And forget the He and She ;
  • And if this love, though placèd so,
  • From profane men you hide,
  • Which will no faith on this bestow,
  • Or, if they do, deride ;
  • Then you have done a braver thing
  • Than all the Worthies did ;
  • And a braver thence will spring,
  • Which is, to keep that hid.
  • The Sun Rising

  • BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
  • Why dost thou thus,
  • Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
  • Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
  • Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
  • Late school-boys and sour prentices,
  • Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
  • Call country ants to harvest offices ;
  • Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
  • Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
  • Thy beams so reverend, and strong
  • Why shouldst thou think ?
  • I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
  • But that I would not lose her sight so long.
  • If her eyes have not blinded thine,
  • Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
  • Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
  • Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
  • Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
  • And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.”
  • She’s all states, and all princes I ;
  • Nothing else is ;
  • Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
  • All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
  • Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
  • In that the world’s contracted thus ;
  • Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
  • To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
  • Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
  • This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
  • The Indifferent

  • i CAN love both fair and brown ;
  • Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays ;
  • Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays ;
  • Her whom the country form’d, and whom the town ;
  • Her who believes, and her who tries ;
  • Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
  • And her who is dry cork, and never cries.
  • I can love her, and her, and you, and you ;
  • I can love any, so she be not true.
  • Will no other vice content you ?
  • Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers ?
  • Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others ?
  • Or doth a fear that men are true torment you ?
  • O we are not, be not you so ;
  • Let me—and do you—twenty know ;
  • Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
  • Must I, who came to travel thorough you,
  • Grow your fix’d subject, because you are true ?
  • Venus heard me sigh this song ;
  • And by love’s sweetest part, variety, she swore,
  • She heard not this till now ; and that it should be so no more.
  • She went, examined, and return’d ere long,
  • And said, “Alas ! some two or three
  • Poor heretics in love there be,
  • Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
  • But I have told them, ‘Since you will be true,
  • You shall be true to them who’re false to you.’ “
  • Love’s USURY

  • FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
  • I will allow,
  • Usurious god of love, twenty to thee,
  • When with my brown my gray hairs equal be.
  • Till then, Love, let my body range, and let
  • Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,
  • Resume my last year’s relict ; think that yet
  • We’d never met.
  • Let me think any rival’s letter mine,
  • And at next nine
  • Keep midnight’s promise ; mistake by the way
  • The maid, and tell the lady of that delay ;
  • Only let me love none ; no, not the sport
  • From country grass to confitures of court,
  • Or city’s quelque-choses ; let not report
  • My mind transport.
  • This bargain’s good ; if when I’m old, I be
  • Inflamed by thee,
  • If thine own honour, or my shame and pain,
  • Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain.
  • Do thy will then ; then subject and degree
  • And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee.
  • Spare me till then ; I’ll bear it, though she be
  • One that love me.
  • The Canonization

  • FOR God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
  • Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
  • My five gray hairs, or ruin’d fortune flout ;
  • With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
  • Take you a course, get you a place,
  • Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
  • Or the king’s real, or his stamp’d face
  • Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
  • So you will let me love.
  • Alas ! alas ! who’s injured by my love?
  • What merchant’s ships have my sighs drown’d?
  • Who says my tears have overflow’d his ground?
  • When did my colds a forward spring remove?
  • When did the heats which my veins fill
  • Add one more to the plaguy bill?
  • Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
  • Litigious men, which quarrels move,
  • Though she and I do love.
  • Call’s what you will, we are made such by love ;
  • Call her one, me another fly,
  • We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die,
  • And we in us find th’ eagle and the dove.
  • The phoenix riddle hath more wit
  • By us ; we two being one, are it ;
  • So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
  • We die and rise the same, and prove
  • Mysterious by this love.
  • We can die by it, if not live by love,
  • And if unfit for tomb or hearse
  • Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
  • And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
  • We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
  • As well a well-wrought urn becomes
  • The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
  • And by these hymns, all shall approve
  • Us canonized for love ;
  • And thus invoke us, “You, whom reverend love
  • Made one another’s hermitage ;
  • You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
  • Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove
  • Into the glasses of your eyes ;
  • So made such mirrors, and such spies,
  • That they did all to you epitomize—
  • Countries, towns, courts beg from above
  • A pattern of your love.”
  • The Triple Fool

  • I am two fools, I know,
  • For loving, and for saying so
  • In whining poetry ;
  • But where’s that wise man, that would not be I,
  • If she would not deny ?
  • Then as th’ earth’s inward narrow crooked lanes
  • Do purge sea water’s fretful salt away,
  • I thought, if I could draw my pains
  • Through rhyme’s vexation, I should them allay.
  • Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
  • For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.
  • But when I have done so,
  • Some man, his art and voice to show,
  • Doth set and sing my pain ;
  • And, by delighting many, frees again
  • Grief, which verse did restrain.
  • To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
  • But not of such as pleases when ’tis read.
  • Both are increasèd by such songs,
  • For both their triumphs so are published,
  • And I, which was two fools, do so grow three.
  • Who are a little wise, the best fools be.
  • Lover’s Infinitesness

  • IF yet I have not all thy love,
  • Dear, I shall never have it all ;
  • I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
  • Nor can intreat one other tear to fall ;
  • And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
  • Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent ;
  • Yet no more can be due to me,
  • Than at the bargain made was meant.
  • If then thy gift of love were partial,
  • That some to me, some should to others fall,
  • Dear, I shall never have thee all.
  • Or if then thou gavest me all,
  • All was but all, which thou hadst then ;
  • But if in thy heart since there be or shall
  • New love created be by other men,
  • Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
  • In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
  • This new love may beget new fears,
  • For this love was not vow’d by thee.
  • And yet it was, thy gift being general ;
  • The ground, thy heart, is mine ; what ever shall
  • Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
  • Song

  • SWEETEST love, I do not go,
  • For weariness of thee,
  • Nor in hope the world can show
  • A fitter love for me ;
  • But since that I
  • At the last must part, ’tis best,
  • Thus to use myself in jest
  • By feigned deaths to die.
  • Yesternight the sun went hence,
  • And yet is here to-day ;
  • He hath no desire nor sense,
  • Nor half so short a way ;
  • Then fear not me,
  • But believe that I shall make
  • Speedier journeys, since I take
  • More wings and spurs than he.
  • O how feeble is man’s power,
  • That if good fortune fall,
  • Cannot add another hour,
  • Nor a lost hour recall ;
  • But come bad chance,
  • And we join to it our strength,
  • And we teach it art and length,
  • Itself o’er us to advance.
  • When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind,
  • But sigh’st my soul away ;
  • When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
  • My life’s blood doth decay.
  • It cannot be
  • That thou lovest me as thou say’st,
  • If in thine my life thou waste,
  • That art the best of me.
  • Song

  • SWEETEST love, I do not go,
  • For weariness of thee,
  • Nor in hope the world can show
  • A fitter love for me ;
  • But since that I
  • At the last must part, ’tis best,
  • Thus to use myself in jest
  • By feigned deaths to die.
  • Yesternight the sun went hence,
  • And yet is here to-day ;
  • He hath no desire nor sense,
  • Nor half so short a way ;
  • Then fear not me,
  • But believe that I shall make
  • Speedier journeys, since I take
  • More wings and spurs than he.
  • O how feeble is man’s power,
  • That if good fortune fall,
  • Cannot add another hour,
  • Nor a lost hour recall ;
  • But come bad chance,
  • And we join to it our strength,
  • And we teach it art and length,
  • Itself o’er us to advance.
  • When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind,
  • But sigh’st my soul away ;
  • When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
  • My life’s blood doth decay.
  • It cannot be
  • That thou lovest me as thou say’st,
  • If in thine my life thou waste,
  • That art the best of me.
  • Let not thy divining heart
  • Forethink me any ill ;
  • Destiny may take thy part,
  • And may thy fears fulfil.
  • But think that we
  • Are but turn’d aside to sleep.
  • They who one another keep
  • Alive, ne’er parted be.
  • The Legacy

  • SWEETEST love, I do not go,
  • For weariness of thee,
  • Nor in hope the world can show
  • A fitter love for me ;
  • But since that I
  • At the last must part, ’tis best,
  • Thus to use myself in jest
  • By feigned deaths to die.
  • Yesternight the sun went hence,
  • And yet is here to-day ;
  • He hath no desire nor sense,
  • Nor half so short a way ;
  • Then fear not me,
  • But believe that I shall make
  • Speedier journeys, since I take
  • More wings and spurs than he.
  • O how feeble is man’s power,
  • That if good fortune fall,
  • Cannot add another hour,
  • Nor a lost hour recall ;
  • But come bad chance,
  • And we join to it our strength,
  • And we teach it art and length,
  • Itself o’er us to advance.
  • When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind,
  • But sigh’st my soul away ;
  • When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
  • My life’s blood doth decay.
  • It cannot be
  • That thou lovest me as thou say’st,
  • If in thine my life thou waste,
  • That art the best of me.
  • Let not thy divining heart
  • Forethink me any ill ;
  • Destiny may take thy part,
  • And may thy fears fulfil.
  • But think that we
  • Are but turn’d aside to sleep.
  • They who one another keep
  • Alive, ne’er parted be.
  • 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 world’s soul, go’st,
  • 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 worshipp’d 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 love’s 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 love’s sphere ;
  • Just such disparity
  • As is ‘twixt air’s and angels’ purity,
  • ‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s, 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 ! that’s 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 we’re 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.
  • 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 love’s 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 scratch’d name to teach,
  • It as a given death’s 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 scatter’d body so,
  • As all the virtuous powers which are
  • Fix’d 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 name’s 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 offend’st my Genius.
  • IX.

  • And when thy melted maid,
  • Corrupted by thy lover’s gold and page,
  • His letter at thy pillow hath laid,
  • Disputed it, and tamed thy rage,
  • And thou begin’st 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 rememb’rest 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.
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