Donne (2 page)

               
She’is all States, and all Princes, I,

               Nothing else is.

Princes doe but play us, compar’d to this,

All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie;

               Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee,

               In that the world’s contracted thus.

    Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee

    To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art every where;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sinne, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

    Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,

    And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two

    And this, alas, is more then wee would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where wee almost, yea more then maryed are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,

And cloystered in these living walls of Jet.

    Though use make you apt to kill mee,

    Let not to that, selfe murder added bee,

    And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.

Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since

Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty bee,

Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and saist that thou

Find’st not thy selfe, nor mee the weaker now;

    ’Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;

    Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee,

    Will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee.

For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love,

    Or chide my palsie, or my gout,

My five gray haires, or ruin’d fortune flout,

    With wealth your state, your minde with Arts improve,

               Take you a course, get you a place,

               Observe his honour, or his grace,

Or the King’s reall, or his stamped face

    Contemplate, what you will, approve,

    So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who’s injur’d by my love?

    What merchants ships have my sighs drown’d?

Who saies my teares have overflow’d his ground?

    When did my colds a forward spring remove?

               When did the heats which my veines fill

               Adde one more to the plaguie Bill?

Soldiers finde warres, and Lawyers finde out still

    Litigious men, which quarrels move,

    Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, wee are made such by love;

    Call her one, mee another flye,

We’are Tapers too, and at our owne cost die,

    And wee in us finde the’Eagle and the dove,

               
The Phœnix ridle hath more wit

               By us, we two being one, are it.

So, to one neutrall thing both sexes fit,

    Wee dye and rise the same, and prove

    Mysterious by this love.

Wee can dye by it, if not live by love,

    And if unfit for tombes and hearse

Our legend bee, it will be fit for verse;

    And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove,

               We’ll build in sonnets pretty roomes;

               As well a well wrought urne becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombes,

    And by these hymnes, all shall approve

    Us
Canoniz’d
for Love.

And thus invoke us; You whom reverend love

    Made one anothers hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage,

    Who did the whole worlds soule contract, and drove

               Into the glasses of your eyes

               So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize,

    Countries, Townes, Courts: Beg from above

    A patterne of our love.

    I am two fooles, I know,

For loving, and for saying so

    In whining Poëtry;

But where’s that wiseman, that would not be I,

    If she would not deny?

Then as th’earths inward narrow crooked lanes

Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away,

    I thought, if I could draw my paines,

Through Rimes vexation, I should them allay,

Griefe 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 paine,

And, by delighting many, frees againe

    Griefe, which verse did restraine.

To Love, and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs,

But not of such as pleases when’tis read,

    Both are increased by such songs:

For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fooles bee.

Now thou hast lov’d me one whole day,

To morrow when thou leav’st, 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 oathes made in reverentiall feare

Of Love, and his wrath, any may forsweare?

Or, as true deaths, true maryages untie,

So lovers contracts, images of those,

Binde but till sleep, deaths image, them unloose?

                         Or, your owne end to Justifie,

For having purpos’d change, and falsehood; you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vaine lunatique, against these scapes I could

                         Dispute, and conquer, if I would,

                         Which I abstaine to doe,

For by to morrow, I may thinke so too.

Sweetest love, I do not goe,

    For wearinesse of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

    A fitter Love for mee,

               But since that I

Must dye at last, ’tis best,

To use my selfe in jest

    Thus by fain’d deaths to dye;

Yesternight the Sunne went hence,

    And yet is here to day,

He hath no desire nor sense,

    Nor halfe so short a way:

               Then feare not mee,

But beleeve that I shall make

Speedier journeyes, since I take

    More wings and spurres than hee.

O how feeble is mans power,

    That if good fortune fall,

Cannot adde another houre,

    Nor a lost houre recall!

               
But come bad chance,

And wee joyne to’it our strength,

And wee teach it art and length,

    It selfe o’r us to’advance.

When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not winde,

    But sigh’st my soule away,

When thou weep’st, unkindly kinde,

    My lifes blood doth decay.

               It cannot bee

That thou lov’st mee, as thou say’st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

    Thou art the best of mee.

Let not thy divining heart

    Forethinke me any ill,

Destiny may take thy part,

    And may thy feares fulfill,

               But thinke that wee

Are but turn’d aside to sleepe;

They who one another keepe

    Alive, ne’r parted bee.

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame,

Angells
affect us oft, and worship’d bee,

    Still when, to where thou wert, I came

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see,

    But since, my soule, whose child love is,

Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe,

    More subtile than the parent is,

Love must not be, but take a body too,

    And therefore what thou wert, and who

               I did Love aske, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,

And so more steddily to have gone,

With wares which would sinke admiration,

I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,

    Ev’ry thy haire for love to worke upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

    For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scattring bright, can love inhere;

    Then as an Angell, face, and wings

Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare,

    So thy love may be my loves spheare;

               Just such disparitie

As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie,

T’wixt womens love, and mens will ever bee.

    All Kings, and all their favorites,

    All glory of honors, beauties, wits,

The Sun it selfe, which makes times, as they passe,

Is elder by a yeare, now, then 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 keepes his first, last, everlasting day.

    Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,

    If one might, death were no divorce,

Alas, as well as other Princes, wee,

(Who Prince enough in one another bee,)

Must leave at last in death, these eyes, and eares,

Oft fed with true oathes, and with sweet salt teares;

    But soules where nothing dwells but love

(All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove

This, or a love increased there above,

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

    
And then wee shall be throughly blest,

    But wee no more, then all the rest.

Here upon earth, we’are Kings, and none but wee

Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects bee;

Who is so safe as wee? where none can doe

Treason to us, except one of us two.

    True and false feares let us refraine,

Let us love nobly, and live, and adde againe

Yeares and yeares unto yeares, till we attaine

To write threescore, this is the second of our raigne.

Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with teares,

    Hither I come to seeke the spring,

    And at mine eyes, and at mine eares,

Receive such balmes, as else cure every thing,

    But O, selfe traytor, I do bring

The spider love, which transubstantiates all,

    And can convert Manna to gall,

And that this place may thoroughly be thought

    True Paradise, I have the serpent brought.

’Twere wholsomer for mee, that winter did

    Benight the glory of this place,

    And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh and mocke mee to my face;

    But that I may not this disgrace

Indure, nor yet leave loving, Love let mee

    Some senslesse peece of this place bee;

Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,

    Or a stone fountaine weeping out my yeare.

Hither with christall vyals, lovers come,

    And take my teares, which are loves wine,

    And try your mistresse Teares at home,

For all are false, that tast not just like mine;

    Alas, hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge womans thoughts by teares,

    Then by her shadow, what she weares.

O perverse sexe, where none is true but shee,

    Who’s therefore true, because her truth kills mee.

Deare love, for nothing lesse then thee

Would I have broke this happy dreame,

               It was a theame

For reason, much too strong for phantasie,

Therefore thou wakd’st me wisely; yet

My Dreame thou brok’st not, but continued’st it,

Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,

To make dreames truths; and fables histories;

Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,

Not to dreame all my dreame, let’s act the rest.

As lightning, or a Tapers light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak’d mee;

               Yet I thought thee

(For thou lovest truth) an Angell, at first sight,

But when I saw thou sawest my heart,

And knew’st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art,

When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when

Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,

I must confesse, it could not chuse but bee

Prophane, to thinke thee any thing but thee.

Comming and staying show’d thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now,

               Thou art not thou.

That love is weake, where feare’s as strong as hee;

’Tis not all spirit, pure, and brave,

If mixture it of
Feare, Shame, Honor
, have;

Perchance as torches which must ready bee,

Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with mee,

Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come; Then I

Will dreame that hope againe, but else would die.