John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (31 page)
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Authors: John Donne
XXXIX.
Natures great master-peece, an Elephant,
The onely harmlesse great thing; the giant
Of beasts; who thought, no more had gone, to make one wise
But to be just, and thankfull, loth to offend,
(Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend)
Himselfe he up-props, on himselfe relies,
And foe to none, suspects no enemies,
Still sleeping stood; vex’t not his fantasie
Blacke dreames, like and unbent bow, carelessly
His sinewy Proboscis did remisly lie.
XL.
In which as in a gallery this mouse
Walk’d, and surveid the roomes of this vast house,
And to the braine, the soules bedchamber, went,
And gnaw’d the life cords there; Like a whole towne
Cleane undermin’d, the slaine beast tumbled downe,
With him the murtherer dies whom envy sent
To kill, not scape, (for, only hee that ment
To die, did ever kill a man of better roome,)
And thus he made his foe, his prey, and tombe:
Who cares not to turn back, may any whither come.
XLI.
Next, hous’d this Soule a Wolves yet unborne whelp,
Till the best midwife, Nature, gave it helpe,
To issue. It could kill, as soon as goe:
Abel, as white, and milde as his sheepe were,
(Who in that trade, of Church, and kingdomes, there
Was the first type) was still infested soe,
With this wolfe, that it bred his losse and woe;
And yet his bitch, his sentinell attends
The flocke so neere, so well warnes and defends,
That the wolfe, (hopelesse else) to corrupt her, intends.
XLII.
Hee tooke a course, which since, successfully,
Great men have often taken, to espie
The counsels, or to breake the plots of foes,
To Abels tent he stealeth in the darke,
On whose skirts the bitch slept; ere she could barke,
Attach’d her with streight gripes, yet hee call’d those,
Embracements of love; to loves work he goes,
Where deeds move more than words; nor doth she show,
Nor much resist, nor needs hee streighten so
His prey, for, were shee loose, she would nor barke, nor goe.
XLIII.
Hee hath engag’d her; his, she wholy bides;
Who not her owne, none others secrets hides,
If to the flocke he come, and Abell there,
She faines hoarse barkings, but she biteth not,
Her faith is quite, but not her love forgot.
At last a trap, of which some every where
Abell had plac’d, ends all his losse, and feare,
By the Wolves death; and now just time it was
That a quick soule should give life to that masse
Of blood in Abels bitch, and thither this did passe.
XLIV.
Some have their wives, their sisters some begot,
But in the lives of Emperours you shall not
Reade of a lust the which may equall this;
This wolfe begot himselfe, and finished
What he began alive, when hee was dead,
Sonne to himselfe, and father too, hee is
A ridling lust, for which Schoolemen would misse
A proper name. The whelpe of both these lay
In Abels tent, and with soft Moaba,
His sister, being yong, it us’d to sport and play.
XLV.
Hee soone for her too harsh, and churlish grew,
And Abell (the dam dead) would use this new
For the field, being of two kindes thus made,
He, as his dam, from sheepe drove wolves away,
And as his Sire, he made them his ownes prey.
Five years he liv’d, and cosened with his trade,
Then hopeless that his faults were hid, betraid
Himselfe by flight, and by all followed,
From dogges, a wolfe; from wolves, a dogge he fled;
And, like a spie to both sides false, he perished.
XLVI.
It quickened next a toyfull Ape, and so
Gamesome it was, that it might freely goe
From tent to tent, and with the children play,
His organs now so like theirs hee doth finde,
That why he cannot laugh, and speake his minde,
He wonders. Much with all, most he doth stay
With Adams fift daughter Siphatecia
Doth gaze on her, and, where she passeth, passe,
Gathers her fruits, and tumbles on the grasse,
And wisest of that kinde, the first true lover was.
XLVII.
He was the first that more desir’d to have
One then another; first that ere did crave
Love by mute signes, and had no power to speake;
First that could make love faces, or could doe
The valters sombersalts, or us’d to wooe
With hoiting gambolls, his owne bones to breake
To make his mistresse merry; or to wreake
Her anger on himselfe. Sinnes against kinde
They easily doe, that can let feed their minde
With outward beauty, beauty they in boyes and beasts do find.
XLVIII.
By this misled, too low things men have prov’d,
And too high; beasts and angels have beene lov’d;
This Ape, though else through-vaine, in this was wise,
He reach’d at things too high, but open way
There was, and he knew not she would say nay;
His toyes prevaile not, likelier meanes he tries,
He gazeth on her face with teare-shot eyes,
And up lifts subtly with his russet pawe
Her kidskinne apron without feare or awe
Of Nature; Nature hath no gaole, though she hath law.
XLIX.
First she was silly and knew not what he ment,
That vertue, by his touches, chaft and spent,
Succeeds an itchie warmth, that melts her quite,
She knew not first, now cares not what he doth,
And willing halfe and more, more then halfe loth,
She neither puls nor pushes, but outright
Now cries, and now repents; when Tethlemite
Her brother, enterd, and a great stone threw
After the Ape, who thus prevented, flew,
This house thus batter’d downe, the Soule possest a new.
L.
And whether by this change she lose or win,
She comes out next, where the Ape would have gone in,
Adam and
Eve
had mingled bloods, and now
Like Chimiques equall fires, her temperate wombe
Had stew’d and form’d it: and part did become
A spungie liver, that did richly allow,
Like a free conduit, on a high hils brow,
Life keeping moisture unto every part;
Part hardned it selfe to a thicker heart,
Whose busie furnaces lifes spirits do impart.
LI.
Another part became the well of sense,
The tender well-arm’d feeling braine, from whence,
Those sinowie strings which do our bodies tie,
Are raveld out; and fast there by one end,
Did this Soule limbes, these limbes a soule attend;
And now they joyn’d; keeping some quality
Of every past shape, she knew treachery,
Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
To be a woman. Themech she is now,
Sister and wife to Caine, Caine that first did plow.
LII.
Who ere thou beest that read’st this sullen Writ,
Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it,
Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with mee,
Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest,
Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,
By cursed Cains race invented be,
And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie,
Ther’s nothing simply good, nor ill alone,
Of every quality comparison,
The onely measure is, and judge, opinion.
THE ANNIVERSARIES
CONTENTS
A FUNERAL ELEGY.
‘Tis loss, to trust a tomb with such a guest,
Or to confine her in a marble chest.
Alas ! what’s marble, jet, or porphyry,
Prized with the chrysolite of either eye,
Or with those pearls and rubies which she was ?
Join the two Indies in one tomb, ‘tis glass ;
And so is all, to her materials,
Though every inch were ten Escurials ;
Yet she’s demolished ; can we keep her then
In works of hands, or of the wits of men ?
10
Can these memorials, rags of paper, give
Life to that name, by which name they must live ?
Sickly, alas ! short-lived, abortive be
Those carcase verses, whose soul is not she ;
And can she, who no longer would be she,
Being such a tabernacle stoop to be
In paper wrapp’d ; or when she would not lie
In such an house, dwell in an elegy ?
But ‘tis no matter ; we may well allow
Verse to live so long as the world will now,
20
For her death wounded it. The world contains
Princes for arms, and counsellors for brains,
Lawyers for tongues, divines for hearts, and more,
The rich for stomachs, and for backs the poor ;
The officers for hands, merchants for feet,
By which remote and distant countries meet ;
But those fine spirits, which do tune and set
This organ, are those pieces which beget
Wonder and love ; and these were she ; and she
Being spent, the world must needs decrepit be. 30
For since death will proceed to triumph still,
He can find nothing, after her, to kill,
Except the world itself, so great as she.
Thus brave and confident may nature be,
Death cannot give her such another blow,
Because she cannot such another show.
But must we say she’s dead ? may ‘t not be said,
That as a sunder’d clock is piecemeal laid,
Not to be lost, but by the maker’s hand
Repolish’d, without error then to stand,
40
Or as the Afric Niger stream enwombs
Itself into the earth, and after comes
— Having first made a natural bridge, to pass
For many leagues — far greater than it was,
May ‘t not be said, that her grave shall restore
Her, greater, purer, firmer than before ?
Heaven may say this, and joy in ‘t, but can we
Who live, and lack her here, this vantage see ?
What is ‘t to us, alas ! if there have been
An angel made a throne, or cherubin ? 50
We lose by ‘t : and as agèd men are glad
Being tasteless grown, to joy in joys they had,
So now the sick, starved world must feed upon
This joy, that we had her, who now is gone.
Rejoice then, nature, and this world, that you,
Fearing the last fires hastening to subdue
Your force and vigour, ere it were near gone,
Wisely bestow’d and laid it all on one ;
One, whose clear body was so pure and thin,
Because it need disguise no thought within ;
60
‘Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to enroll,
Or exhalation breathed out from her soul ;
One whom all men, who durst no more, admired ;
And whom, whoe’er had worth enough, desired ;
As when a temple ‘s built, saints emulate
To which of them it shall be consecrate.
But as, when heaven looks on us with new eyes,
Those new stars every artist exercise ;
What place they should assign to them they doubt,
Argue, and agree not, till those stars go out ;
70
So the world studied whose this piece should be,
Till she can be nobody’s else, nor she ;
But like a lamp of balsamum, desired
Rather to adorn than last, she soon expired.
Clothed in her virgin white integrity
— For marriage, though it doth not stain, doth dye —
To ‘scape th’ infirmities which wait upon
Woman, she went away before she was one ;
And the world’s busy noise to overcome,
Took so much death as served for opium ;
80
For though she could not, nor could choose to die,
She hath yielded to too long an ecstasy.
He which, not knowing her sad history,
Should come to read the book of destiny,
How fair, and chaste, humble and high she’d been,
Much promised, much perform’d, at not fifteen,
And measuring future things by things before,
Should turn the leaf to read, and read no more,
Would think that either destiny mistook,
Or that some leaves were torn out of the book. 90
But ‘tis not so ; fate did but usher her
To years of reason’s use, and then infer
Her destiny to herself, which liberty
She took, but for thus much, thus much to die.
Her modesty not suffering her to be
Fellow-commissioner with destiny,
She did no more but die ; if after her
Any shall live, which dare true good prefer,
Every such person is her delegate,
To accomplish that which should have been her fate.
100
They shall make up that book, and shall have thanks
Of fate, and her, for filling up their blanks ;
For future virtuous deeds are legacies,
Which from the gift of her example rise ;
And ‘tis in heaven part of spiritual mirth,
To see how well the good play her, on earth.
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.
A N
A N A T O M I E
of the World.
Wherein,
B Y O C C A S I O N O F
the vntimely death of Mistris
E L I Z A B E T H D R V R Y,
the frailtie and the decay of
this whole World is
represented.
L O N D O N,
T O T H E P R A I S E
of the Dead, and the
A N A T O M Y.
WELL dy’de the World, that we might liue to see
This World of wit, in his Anatomee:
No euill wants his good: so wilder heyres;
Bedew their Fathers Toombs, with forced teares,
Whose state requites their losse: whiles thus we gaine
Well may we walke in blacke, but not complaine.
Yet how can I consent the world is dead
While this Muse liues? which in his spirits stead
Seemes to informe a world: and bids it bee,
In spight of losse, or fraile mortalitee?
And thou the subiect of this wel-borne thought,
Thrise noble Maid; couldst not haue found nor sought
A fitter time to yeeld to thy sad Fate,
Then whiles this spirit liues; that can relate
Thy worth so well to our last Nephews Eyne,
That they shall wonder both at his, and thine:
Admired match! where striues in mutuall grace
The cunning Pencill, and the comely face:
A taske, which thy faire goodnesse made too much
For the bold pride of vulgar pens to tuch;
Enough is vs to praise them that praise thee,
And say that but enough those prayses bee,
Which had’st thou liu’d, had hid their fearefull head
From th’angry checkings of thy modestred:
Death bars reward & shame: when enuy’s gone,
And gaine; ‘tis safe to giue the dead their owne.
As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay
More on their Tombes, then houses: these of clay,
But those of brasse, or marbele were; so wee
Giue more vnto thy Ghost, then vnto thee.
Yet what wee giue to thee, thou gauest to vs,
And maiest but thanke thy selfe, for being thus:
Yet what thou gau’st, and wert, O happy maid,
Thy grace profest all due, were ‘tis repayd.
So these high songs that to thee suited bine,
Serue but to sound thy makers praise, in thine,
Which thy deare soule as sweetly sings to him
Amid the Quire of Saints and Seraphim,
As any Angels tongue can sing of thee;
The subiects differ, then the skill agree:
For as by infant-yeares men iudge of age,
Thy early loue, thy vertues, did presage
What hie part thou bear’st in those best songs
Whereto no burden, nor no end belongs.
Sing on thou Virgin soule, whose losseful gaine
Thy loue-sicke Parents haue bewail’d in vaine;
Neuer may thy Name be in our songs forgot.
Till we shall sing thy ditty, and thy note.