John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (23 page)

Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;

Inn anywhere, continuance maketh hell.

And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,

Carrying his own house still, still is at home,

Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,

Be thine own palace, or the world 's thy goal.

And in the world's sea, do not like cork sleep

Upon the water's face; nor in the deep

Sink like a lead without a line: but as

Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,

Nor making sound, so closely thy course go,

Let men dispute, whether thou breathe, or no.

Only in this one thing, be no Galenist: to make

Courts' hot ambitions wholesome, do not take

A dram of country's dullness; do not add

Correctives, but as chemics, purge the bad.

But, Sir, I advise not you, I rather do

Say o'er those lessons, which I learned of you:

Whom, free from German schisms, and lightness

Of France, and fair Italy's faithlessness,

Having from these sucked all they had of worth,

And brought home that faith, which you carried forth,

I throughly love. But if myself, I have won

To know my rules, I have, and you have

Donne.

To Sir Henry Wotton, at his going Ambassador to Venice

After those reverend papers, whose soul is

Our good and great King's loved hand and feared name,

By which to you he derives much of his,

And (how he may) makes you almost the same,

A taper of his torch, a copy writ

From his original, and a fair beam

Of the same warm, and dazzling sun, though it

Must in another sphere his virtue stream:

After those learned papers which your hand

Hath stored with notes of use and pleasure too,

From which rich treasury you may command

Fit matter whether you will write or do:

After those loving papers, where friends send

With glad grief, to your sea-ward steps, farewell,

Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend

To heaven in troops at a good man's passing bell:

Admit this honest paper, and allow

It such an audience as yourself would ask;

What you must say at Venice this means now,

And hath for nature, what you have for task.

To swear much love, not to be changed before

Honour alone will to your fortune fit;

Nor shall I then honour your fortune, more

Than I have done your honour wanting it.

But 'tis an easier load (though both oppress)

To want, than govern greatness, for we are

In that, our own and only business,

In this, we must for others' vices care;

'Tis therefore well your spirits now are placed

In their last furnace, in activity;

Which fits them (schools and Courts and wars o'erpast)

To touch and test in any best degree.

For me, (if there be such a thing as I)

Fortune (if there be such a thing as she)

Spies that I bear so well her tyranny,

That she thinks nothing else so fit for me;

But though she part us, to hear my oft prayers

For your increase, God is as near me here;

And to send you what I shall beg, his stairs

In length and ease are alike everywhere.

H. W. in Hibernia Belligeranti

Went you to conquer? and have so much lost

Yourself, that what in you was best and most,

Respective friendship, should so quickly die?

In public gain my share' is not such that I

Would lose your love for Ireland: better cheap

I pardon death (who though he do not reap

Yet gleans he many of our friends away)

Than that your waking mind should be a prey

To lethargies. Let shot, and bogs, and skeins

With bodies deal, as fate bids or restrains;

Ere sicknesses attack, young death is best,

Who pays before his death doth 'scape arrest.

Let not your soul (at first with graces filled,

And since, and thorough crooked limbecs, stilled

In many schools and Courts, which quicken it,)

Itself unto the Irish negligence submit.

I ask not laboured letters which should wear

Long papers out: nor letters which should fear

Dishonest carriage; or a seer's art,

Nor such as from the brain come, but the heart.

To Sir Edward Herbert, at Juliers

Man is a lump, where all beasts kneaded be,

Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree;

The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar,

Is sport to others, and a theatre,

Nor 'scapes he so, but is himself their prey;

All which was man in him, is eat away,

And now his beasts on one another feed,

Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed;

How happy is he, which hath due place assigned

To his beasts, and disafforested his mind!

Empaled himself to keep them out, not in;

Can sow, and dares trust corn, where they have been;

Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast,

And is not ass himself to all the rest.

Else, man not only is the herd of swine,

But he's those devils too, which did incline

Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse:

For man can add weight to heaven's heaviest curse.

As souls (they say) by our first touch, take in

The poisonous tincture of original sin,

So, to the punishments which God doth fling,

Our apprehension contributes the sting.

To us, as to his chickens, he doth cast

Hemlock, and we as men, his hemlock taste.

We do infuse to what he meant for meat,

Corrosiveness, or intense cold or heat.

For, God no such specific poison hath

As kills we know not how; his fiercest wrath

Hath no antipathy, but may be good

At least for physic, if not for our food.

Thus man, that might be his pleasure, is his rod,

And is his devil, that might be his God.

Since then our business is, to rectify

Nature, to what she was, we are led awry

By them, who man to us in little show,

Greater than due, no form we can bestow

On him; for man into himself can draw

All, all his faith can swallow, or reason chaw.

All that is filled, and all that which doth fill,

All the round world, to man is but a pill;

In all it works not, but it is in all

Poisonous, or purgative, or cordial,

For, knowledge kindles calentures in some,

And is to others icy opium.

As brave as true, is that profession then

Which you do use to make; that you know man.

This makes it credible, you have dwelt upon

All worthy books, and now are such a one.

Actions are authors, and of those in you

Your friends find every day a mart of new.

To Mrs M. H. (Mad paper stay)

Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burn

With all those sons whom my brain did create,

At least lie hid with me, till thou return

To rags again, which is thy native state.

What though thou have enough unworthiness

To come unto great place as others do,

That's much; emboldens, pulls, thrusts I confess,

But 'tis not all, thou shouldst be wicked too.

And, that thou canst not learn, or not of me;

Yet thou wilt go; go, since thou goest to her

Who lacks but faults to be a prince, for she,

Truth, whom they dare not pardon, dares prefer.

But when thou com'st to that perplexing eye

Which equally claims love and reverence,

Thou wilt not long dispute it, thou wilt die;

And, having little now, have then no sense.

Yet when her warm redeeming hand, which is

A miracle; and made such to work more,

Doth touch thee, sapless leaf, thou grow'st by this

Her creature; glorified more than before.

Then as a mother which delights to hear

Her early child mis-speak half-uttered words,

Or, because majesty doth never fear

Ill or bold speech, she audience affords.

And then, cold speechless wretch, thou diest again,

And wisely; what discourse is left for thee?

From speech of ill, and her thou must abstain,

And is there any good which is not she?

Yet mayst thou praise her servants, though not her,

And wit, and virtue, and honour her attend,

And since they are but her clothes, thou shalt not err

If thou her shape and beauty and grace commend.

Who knows thy destiny? when thou hast done,

Perchance her cabinet may harbour thee,

Whither all noble ambitious wits do run,

A nest almost as full of good as she.

When thou art there, if any, whom we know,

Were saved before, and did that heaven partake,

When she revolves his papers, mark what show

Of favour, she, alone, to them doth make.

Mark, if to get them, she o'erskip the rest,

Mark, if she read them twice, or kiss the name;

Mark, if she do the same that they protest,

Mark, if she mark whether her woman came.

Mark, if slight things be objected, and o'erblown.

Mark, if her oaths against him be not still

Reserved, and that she grieves she's not her own,

And chides the doctrine that denies freewill.

I bid thee not do this to be my spy;

Nor to make myself her familiar;

But so much I do love her choice, that I

Would fain love him that shall be loved of her.

To the Countess of Bedford at New Year's Tide

This twilight of two years, not past nor next,

Some emblem is of me, or I of this,

Who (meteor-like, of stuff and form perplexed,

Whose what, and where, in disputation is,)

If I should call me anything, should miss.

I sum the years, and me, and find me not

Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to the new,

That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot,

Nor trust I this with hopes, and yet scarce true

This bravery is, since these times showed me you.

In recompense I would show future times

What you were, and teach them to urge towards such,

Verse embalms virtue; and tombs, or thrones of rhymes,

Preserve frail transitory fame, as much

As spice doth bodies from corrupt air's touch.

Mine are short-lived; the tincture of your name

Creates in them, but dissipates as fast

New spirits; for, strong agents with the same

Force that doth warm and cherish, us do waste;

Kept hot with strong extracts, no bodies last:

So, my verse built of your just praise, might want

Reason and likelihood, the firmest base,

And made of miracle, now faith is scant,

Will vanish soon, and so possess no place,

And you, and it, too much grace might disgrace.

When all (as truth commands assent) confess

All truth of you, yet they will doubt how I

One corn of one low anthill's dust, and less,

Should name, know, or express a thing so high,

And not an inch, measure infinity.

I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,

But leave, lest truth be endangered by my praise,

And turn to God, who knows I think this true,

And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,

To make it good, for, such a praiser prays.

He will best teach you, how you should lay out

His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood,

He will perplex security with doubt,

And clear those doubts, hide from you, and show you good,

And so increase your appetite and food;

He will teach you, that good and bad have not

One latitude in cloisters, and in Court,

Indifferent there the greatest space hath got,

Some pity is not good there, some vain disport,

On this side sin, with that place may comport.

Yet he, as he bounds seas, will fix your hours,

Which pleasure, and delight may not ingress,

And though what none else lost, be truliest yours,

He will make you, what you did not, possess,

By using others', not vice, but weakness.

He will make you speak truths, and credibly,

And make you doubt, that others do not so:

He will provide you keys, and locks, to spy,

And 'scape spies, to good ends, and he will show

What you may not acknowledge, what not know.

For your own conscience, he gives innocence,

But for your fame, a discreet wariness,

And though to 'scape, than to revenge offence

Be better, he shows both, and to repress

Joy, when your state swells, sadness when 'tis less.

From need of tears he will defend your soul,

Or make a rebaptizing of one tear;

He cannot, (that's, he will not) dis-enrol

Your name; and when with active joy we hear

This private gospel, then 'tis our New Year.

To the Countess of Bedford

Honour is so sublime perfection,

And so refined; that when God was alone

And creatureless at first, himself had none;

But as of the elements, these which we tread,

Produce all things with which we'are joyed or fed,

And, those are barren both above our head:

So from low persons doth all honour flow;

Kings, whom they would have honoured, to us show,

And but direct our honour, not bestow.

For when from herbs the pure parts must be won

From gross, by stilling, this is better done

By despised dung, than by the fire or sun.