John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (28 page)

Then, though victoriously, thou hadst fought as yet
But with thine own affections, with the heat
Of youth’s desires, and colds of ignorance,
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But till thou shouldst successfully advance
Thine arms ’gainst foreign enemies, which are
Both envy, and acclamation  popular
—For both these engines equally defeat,
Though by a divers mine, those which are great—
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Till then thy war was but a civil war,
For which to triumph none admitted are;
No more are they who, though with good success,
In a defensive war their power express.
Before men triumph, the dominion
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Must be enlarged, and not preserved alone.
Why shouldst thou, then, whose battles were to win
Thyself from those straits nature put thee in,
And to deliver up to God that state,
Of which He gave thee the vicariate,
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Which is thy soul and body, as entire
As he who takes indentures  doth require;
But didst not stay to enlarge His kingdom too,
By making others, what thou didst, to do;
Why shouldst thou triumph now, when heaven no more
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Hath got by getting thee, than it had before;
For heaven and thou, e’en when thou livedst here,
Of one another in possession were.
But this from triumph most disables thee,
That that place which is conquered must be
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Left safe from present war, and likely doubt
Of imminent commotions to break out;
And hath he left us so? or can it be
His  territory was no more than he?

No, we were all his charge; the diocese
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Of every exemplar man the whole world is;
And he was joined in commission
With tutelar angels, sent to every one.
But though this freedom to upbraid and chide
Him who triumph’d were lawful, it was tied
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With this, that it might never reference have
Unto the senate, who this triumph gave;
Men might at Pompey jest, but they might not
At that authority by which he got
Leave to triumph, before by age he might;
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So though, triumphant soul, I dare to write,
Moved with a reverential anger, thus,
That thou so early wouldst abandon us;
Yet I am far from daring to dispute
With that great sovereignty, whose absolute
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Prerogative hath thus dispensed with thee,
’Gainst nature’s laws, which just impugners be
Of early triumphs; and I, though with pain,
Lessen our loss, to magnify thy gain
Of triumph, when I say, it was more fit
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That all men should lack thee, than thou lack it.
Though then in our time be not suffered
That testimony of love unto the dead,
To die with them, and in their graves be hid,
As Saxon wives, and French soldarii did;
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And though in no degree I can express
Grief in great Alexander’s great excess,
Who at his friend’s death made whole towns divest
Their walls and bulwarks, which became them best;
Do not, fair soul, this sacrifice refuse,
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That in thy grave I do inter my Muse,
Which, by my grief, great as thy worth, being cast
Behindhand, yet hath spoke, and spoke her last.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS BOULSTRED (I)

DEATH I recant, and say, ‘Unsaid by me,
Whate’er hath slipp’d, that might diminish thee.’
Spiritual treason, atheism ’tis to say
That any can thy summons disobey.
Th’ earth’s face is but thy table; there are set
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Plants, cattle, men, dishes  for death to eat.

In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws.
Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste,
Eating the best first, well preserved to last.
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Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not,
But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot.
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep;
Who—were Death dead—by roes  of living sand  15
Might sponge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds’, heaven’s choristers, organic throats;
Which, if they did not die, might seem to be
A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy.
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O strong and long-lived death, how earnest thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest,
All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist.
How could I think thee nothing, that see now
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In all this All nothing else is, but thou?
Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death.
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And though thou be’st, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaim’d by God, that thou must lay
All that thou kill’st at His feet, yet doth He
Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee.

And of those few now thou hast overthrown
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One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own.
She was more storeys high; hopeless to come
To her soul, thou hast offer’d at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court;
But thou hast both of captain miss’d and fort.
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As houses fall not, though the kings remove,
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
Death gets ’twixt souls and bodies such a place
As sin insinuates ’twixt just men and grace;
Both work a separation, no divorce.
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Her soul is gone to usher up her corse,
Which shall be almost another soul—for there
Bodies are purer than best souls are here.
Because in her, her virtues did outgo
Her years, would’st thou, O emulous death, do so,
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And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost
Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?
What though thou found’st her proof ’gainst sins of youth?
O, every age a diverse sin pursueth.
Thou should’st have stayed, and taken better hold.
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Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old,
She might have proved; and such devotion
Might once have stray’d to superstition.
If all her virtues must have grown, yet might
Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight.
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Had she persever’d just, there would have been
Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin.
Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign
To sociableness, a name profane,
Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that,
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By wishing, though they never told her what.
Thus mightst thou have slain more souls had’st thou not cross’d
Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost.
Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,
Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone.
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But we may ’scape that sin, yet weep as much;
Our tears are due because we are not such.
Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke, but no link  lost.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS BOULSTRED (II)

DEATH, be not proud, thy hand gave not this blow;
Sin was her captive, whence thy power doth flow;
The executioner of wrath thou art,
But to destroy the just is not thy part.
Thy coming, terror, anguish, grief denounces;
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Her happy state, courage, ease, joy pronounces.
From out the crystal palace of her breast,
The clearer soul was call’d to endless rest
—Not by the thundering voice, wherewith God threats,
But as with crowned saints in heaven He treats—
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And, waited on by angels, home was brought,
To joy that it through many dangers sought.
The key of mercy gently did unlock
The doors ’twixt heaven and it, when life did knock.
Nor boast the fairest frame was made thy prey,
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Because to mortal eyes it did decay.
A better witness than thou art, assures,
That though dissolved, it yet a space endures;
No dram thereof shall want or loss sustain,
When her best soul inhabits it again.
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Go then to people cursed before they were;
Their souls in triumph to thy conquest bear.
Glory not thou thyself in these hot tears
Which our face, not for her, but our harm wears;
The mourning livery given by grace, not thee,
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Which wills our souls in these streams washed should be;
And on our hearts, her memory’s best tomb,
In this her epitaph doth write thy doom.
Blind were those eyes, saw not how bright did shine
Through flesh’s misty veil those beams divine;
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Deaf were the ears, not charm’d with that sweet sound
Which did i’ th’ spirit’s instructed voice abound;
Of flint the conscience, did not yield and melt,
At what in her last act it saw and felt.
Weep not, nor grudge then to have lost her sight,
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Taught thus, our after stay’s but a short night;
But by all souls not by corruption choked
Let in high raisèd notes that power be invoked,
Calm the rough seas by which she sails to rest
From sorrows here to a kingdom ever blest.
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And teach this hymn of her with joy, and sing,
‘The grave no conquest gets, Death hath no sting.’

DEATH

LANGUAGE, thou art too narrow and too weak
To ease us now; great sorrows  cannot speak.
If we could sigh out accents, and weep words,
Grief wears, and lessens, that tears breath affords.
Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are
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—So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar—
Not that they know not, feel not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate.
Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we be,
Tyrant, in the fifth and greatest monarchy,
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Was ’t that she did possess all hearts before,
Thou hast kill’d her, to make thy empire more?
Knew’st thou some would, that knew her not, lament,
As in a deluge perish th’ innocent?
Was ’t not enough to have that palace won,
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But thou must raze it too, that was undone?
Hadst thou stay’d there, and look’d out at her eyes,
All had adored thee, that now from thee flies;
For they let out more light than they took in,
They told not when, but did the day begin.
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She was too sapphirine and clear for thee;
Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be.
Alas! she was too pure, but not too weak;
Whoe’er saw crystal ordnance but would break?
And if we be thy conquest, by her fall
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Thou hast lost thy end; in her we perish all;
Or if we live, we live but to rebel,
That know her better now, who knew her well.

If we should vapour out, and pine, and die,
Since she first went, that were not misery.
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She changed our world with hers; now she is gone,
Mirth and prosperity is oppression;
For of all moral virtues she was all,
That  ethics speak of virtues cardinal.

Her soul was paradise; the cherubin
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Set to keep it was grace, that kept out sin.
She had no more than let in death, for we
All reap consumption from one fruitful tree.
God took her hence, lest some of us should love
Her, like that plant, Him and His laws above;
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And when we tears, He mercy shed in this,
To raise our minds to heaven, where now she is;
Who if her virtues would have let her stay
We had had a saint, have now a holiday.
Her heart was that strange bush, where sacred fire,
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Religion, did not consume, but inspire
Such piety, so chaste use of God’s day,
That what we turn to feast, she turn’d to pray;
And did prefigure here, in devout taste,
The rest of her high Sabbath,  which shall last.  50
Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell,
For she was of that order whence most fell;
Her body’s  left with us, lest some had said,
She could not die, except they saw her dead;
For from less virtue, and less beauteousness,
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The Gentiles framed them gods and goddesses.
The ravenous earth, that now woos her to be
Earth too, will be a Lemnia, and the tree
That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb
Shall be took up spruce, fill’d with diamond.
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And we her sad glad friends all bear a part
Of grief, for all would break a Stoic’s heart.

ELEGY ON THE LORD CHANCELLOR

SORROW, who to this house scarce knew the way,
Is, O, heir of it, our all is his prey.
This strange chance claims strange wonder, and to us
Nothing can be so strange as to weep thus.
’Tis well his life’s loud-speaking works deserve,
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And give praise too, our cold tongues could not serve;
’Tis well he kept tears from our eyes before,
That to fit this deep ill we might have store.
O, if a sweet briar climb up by a tree,
If to a paradise that transplanted be,
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Or fell’d, and burnt for holy sacrifice,
Yet that must wither which by it did rise,
As we for him dead; though no family
E’er rigg’d a soul for heaven’s discovery
With whom more venturers more boldly dare
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Venture their states, with him in joy to share,
We lose what all friends loved, him; he gains now
But life by death, which worst foes would allow,
If he could have foes, in whose practice grew
All virtues, whose name subtle schoolmen knew.
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What ease can hope that we shall see him beget,
When we must die first, and cannot die yet?
His children are his pictures; O, they be
Pictures of him dead, senseless, cold as he.
Here needs no marble tomb, since he is gone,
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He, and about him his, are turn’d to stone.
 

A HYMN TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUIS HAMILTON

   To Sir Robert CarrSIR,  I presume you rather try what you can do in me, than what I can do in verse; you know my uttermost when it was best, and even then I did best when I had least truth for my subjects. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call therefore this paper by what name you will, and, if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, smother it, and be that the sacrifice.  If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland and preached there, I would have embraced the  obligation with more  alacrity; but I thank you that you would command me that which I was loth  to do, for even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of
Your poor friend and 
servant in Christ Jesus,
J. D.