John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (37 page)

Love’s Power

SHALL Love, that gave Latona’s heir the foil,
(Proud of his archery and Python’s spoil,)
And so enthrall’d him to a nymph’s disdain
As, when his hopes were dead, he, full of pain,
Made him above all trees the laurel grace,
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An emblem of Love’s glory, his disgrace;
Shall he, I say, be term’d a foot-boy now
Which made all powers in heaven and earth to bow?
Or is’t a fancy which themselves do frame,
And therefore dare baptize by any name?
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A flaming straw! which one spark kindles bright,
And first hard breath out of itself doth fright;
Whose father was a smile, and death a frown,
Soon proud of little and for less cast down?
’Tis so! and this a lackey term you may,
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For it runs oft and makes but shortest stay.
But thou, O Love! free from Time’s eating rust,
That set’st a limit unto boundless lust,
Making desire grow infinitely strong,
And yet to one chaste subject still belong;
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Bridling self-love, that flatters us in ease,
Quick’ning our wits to strive that they may please;
Fixing the wand’ring thoughts of straying youth,
The firmest bond of Faith, the knot of Truth;
Thou that didst never lodge in worthless heart,
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Thou art a master wheresoe’er thou art.
Thou makest food loathsome, sleep to be unrest,
Lost labour easeful, scornful looks a feast;
And when thou wilt, thy joys as far excel
All else as, when thou punishest, thy Hell.
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O make that rebel feel thy matchless power,
Thou that madest Jove a bull, a swan, a shower.
Give him a love as tyrannous as fair,
That his desire go yokèd with despair.
Live in her eyes, but in her frozen heart
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Let no thaw come that may have sense of smart.
Let her a constant silence never break,
Till he do wish repulse to hear her speak;
And last, such sense of error may him have
As he may never dare for mercy crave.
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Then none will more capitulate with thee,
But of their hearts will yield the empire free.

Love and Reason

BASE Love, the stain of youth, the scorn of age,
The folly of a man, a woman’s rage;
The canker of a froward will thou art,
The business of an idle empty heart;
The rack of jealousy and sad Mistrust,
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The smooth and justified excuse of lust;
The thief which wastes the taper of our life;
The quiet name of restless jars and strife;
The fly which dost corrupt and quite distaste
All happiness if thou therein be cast;
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The greatest and the most conceal’d impostor
That ever vain credulity did foster;
A mountebank extolling trifles small,
A juggler playing loose, not fast with all;
An alchemist, whose promises are gold,
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Payment but dross, and hope at highest sold.
This, this is Love, and worse than I can say.
When he a master is, and bears the sway,
He guides like Phaeton, burns and destroys,
Parches and stifles what would else be joys.
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But when clear Reason, sitting in the throne,
Governs his beams—which otherwise are none
But darts and mischiefs—oh, then, sunlike, he
Doth actuate, produce, ripen and free
From grossness, those good seeds which in us lie
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Till then as in a grave, and there would die.
All high perfections in a perfect lover
His warmth does cherish, and his light discover.
He gives an even temper of delight
Without a minute’s loss; nor fears affright
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Nor interrupt the joys such love doth bring,
Nor no enjoying can dry up the spring.
Unto another he lends out our pleasure,
That—with the use—it may come home a treasure.
Pure link of bodies where no lust controls,
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The fastness and security of souls!
Sweetest path of life, virtue in full sail,
Tree-budding hope whose fruit doth never fail!
To this dear love I do no rebel stand,
Though not employ’d, yet ready at command.
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Wherefore, O Reason high, thou who art king
Of the world’s king, and dost in order bring
The wild affections, which so often swerve
From the just rule, and rebel passions serve;
Thou without whose light love’s fire is but smoke,
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Which puts out eyes and mind’s true sense doth choke;
Restore this lover to himself again,
Send him a lively feeling of his pain,
Give him a healthy and discerning taste
Of food and rest, that he may rest at last,
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By strength of thee, from his strange strong disease,
Wherein the danger is that it doth please.
Grant this, O Reason, at his deep’st request
Who never loved to see your power suppress’d.
And now to you, Sir Love, your love I crave;
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Of you no mastery I desire to have.
But that we may, like honest friends, agree,
Let us to Reason fellow-servants be.

To a Lady of a Dark Complexion

IF shadows be the picture’s excellence
And make it seem more lively to the sense;
If stars in the bright day are lost from sight
And seem most glorious in the mask of Night;
Why should you think, rare creature, that you lack
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Perfection, ’cause your eyes and hair are black,
Or that your heavenly beauty, which exceeds
The new sprung lilies in their maidenheads,
The damask colour of your cheeks and lips,
Should suffer by their darkness and eclipse?
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Rich diamonds shine brightest being set
And compassed within a field of jet;
Nor were it fit that Nature should have made
So bright a sun to shine without some shade.
It seems that Nature, when she first did fancy
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Your rare composure, studied necromancy;
That when to you this gift she did impart
She usèd altogether the black art,
By which infusèd powers from magic book
You do command, like spirits, with a look.
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She drew those magic circles in your eyes,
And made your hair the chains with which she ties
Rebelling hearts. Those blue veins, which appear
Winding meanders about either sphere,
Mysterious figures are; and when you list,
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Your voice commandeth as the exorcist.
O, if in magic you have power so far,
Vouchsafe to make me your familiar.
Nor hath dame Nature her black art reveal’d
To outward parts alone, some lie conceal’d.
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For as by heads of springs men often know
The nature of the streams which run below,
So your black hair and eyes do give direction
To think the rest to be of like complexion;
That rest where all rest lies that blesseth man,
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That Indian mine, that strait of Magellan,
That world-dividing gulf, where he who ventures
With swelling sails and ravish’d senses, enters
To a new world of bliss. Pardon, I pray,
If my rude Muse presumeth to display
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Secrets unknown, or hath her bounds o’er pass’d
In praising sweetness which I ne’er did taste.
Starved men do know there’s meat, and blind men may,
Though hid from light, presume there is a day.
The rover in the mark his arrow strikes
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Sometimes as well as he that shoots at pricks;
And if that I might aim my shaft aright,
The black mark I would hit and not the white.

Borrowing

ONE calls me friend, yet urges me to pay
A debt I borrow’d, not upon a day,
But upon terms of love; am I his friend?
I may then owe as freely as he lend.

Supping Hours

THOU in the field walk’st out thy supping hours,
  And yet thou say’st thou hast supp’d like a king;
Like Nebuchadnezzar perchance, with grass and flowers,
  A salad worse than Spanish dieting.

The Smith

SMUG the smith for ale and spice
Sold all his tools, but kept his vice.

The Lady and her Viol

WHY dost thou, dear, affect thy viol so,
And let thy love forlorn with anguish go?
Thou’lt kindly set him on thy lap, embrace
And almost kiss, while I must void the place.
Thou’lt string him truly, tune him sweetly, when
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Thou’lt wrest me out of tune and crack me then.
Thou’lt stop his frets, but set no date to mine.
Thou’lt give whate’er he wants, but let me pine.
Thou know’st him hollow-hearted, yet wilt hear
Him thoroughout with an attentive ear;
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And sing him such a pleasing lullaby,
Would charm hell’s churlish porter’s watchful eye,
Keeping true time with him as true may be,
But find no time to keep thee true to me.
Dear, as the instrument would I were thine,
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That thou mightst play on me,  or thou wert mine.

A Paradox

WHOSO terms Love a fire, may like a poet
Feign what he will, for certain cannot show it;
For fire ne’er burns but when the fuel’s near,
But Love doth at most distance most appear;
Yet out of fire water did never go;
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But tears from Love abundantly do flow;
Fire still mounts upward, but Love oft descendeth;
Fire leaves the midst, Love to the centre tendeth;
Fire drys and hardens, Love doth mollify;
Fire doth consume, but Love doth fructify.
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    The powerful Queen of Love (fair Venus) came,
Descended from the sea, not from the flame;
Whence passions ebb and flow, and from the brain
Run to the heart, like streams, and back again.
Yea Love oft fills men’s breasts with melting snow,
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Drowning their love-sick minds in floods of woe.
What, is Love water, then? it may be so;
But he saith truest that saith he doth not know.

Sun, Begone

WHEREFORE peep’st thou, envious Day?
    We can kiss without thee;
Lovers hate that golden ray
    Which thou bear’st about thee.

Go, and give them light that sorrow,
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    Or the sailor flying:
Our embraces need no morrow,
    Nor our kisses eyeing.

We shall curse thy envious eye
    For thy soon betraying;
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Or condemn thee for a spy,
    If thou find’st us playing.

Get thee gone, and lend thy flashes
    Where there’s need of lending:
Our affections are not ashes,
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    Nor our pleasures ending.

Were we cold or wither’d here,
    We could stay thee by us;
Or but one another’s sphere,
    Then thou shouldst not fly us.
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We are young, thou spoilst our pleasure;
    Go to sea and slumber;
Darkness only lends us leisure
    Our stolen joys to number.

If She Deride

GREAT and good if she deride me,
Let me walk, I’ll not despair;
Ere to-morrow I’ll provide me
One as great, less proud, more fair.
    They that seek love to constrain
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    Have their labour for their pain.

They that strongly can importune,
And will never yield nor tire,
Gain the pay in spite of Fortune;
But such gain I’ll not desire.
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    Where the prize is shame or sin,
    Winners lose, and losers win.

Look upon the faithful lover;
Grief stands painted in his face;
Groans and sighs and tears discover
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That they are his only grace.
    He must weep as children do,
    That will in the fashion woo.

I, who fly these idle fancies
Which my dearest rest betray,
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Warn’d by other’s harmful chances,
Use my freedom as I may.
    When all the world says what it can,
    ’Tis but—O! unconstant man!

Love and Wit

TRUE love finds wit, but he whose wit doth move
Him to love, confesseth he doth not love;
And from his wit passions and true desire
Are forced as hard as from the flint is fire.
My love’s all fire, whose flames my soul doth nurse,
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Whose smokes are sighs, whose every spark’s a verse.
Doth measure win women? Then I know why
Most of our ladies with the Scots do lie.
A Scot is measured in each syllable, terse
And smooth as a verse, and, like that smooth verse,   10
Is shallow, and wants matter cut in bands.

And they are rugged. Her state better stands,
Whom dancing measures tempted, not the Scot;
In brief, they’re  out of measure, lost, so got.

Green-sickness wenches (not needs must, but) may
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Look pale, breathe short; at court none so long stay.
Good wit never despair’d there, or “Ah me!” said,
For never wench at court was ravished.
And she but cheats on heaven whom so you win,
Thinking to share the sport, but not the sin.
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Dr. Donne’s Farewell to the World

FAREWELL, you gilded follies, pleasing troubles!
Farewell, you honour’d rags, you crystal bubbles!
Fame’s but a hollow echo; gold pure clay;
Honour is but the darling of one day;
Beauty, the eyes’ idol, but a damask skin;
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State but a golden prison to keep in
And torture freeborn minds; embroider’d trains
But goodly pageants, proudly-swelling veins;
Fame, riches, honour, state, trains, beauties, birth,
Are but the fading blessings of the earth.
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I would be great, but see the sun doth still
Level his beams against the rising hill;
I would be rich, but see men too unkind
Dip in the bowels of the richest minds;
I would be fair, but see the champion proud,
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The world’s fair eye, off setting in a cloud;
I would be wise, but that the fox I see
Suspected guilty when the ass is free;
I would be poor, but see the humble grass
Is trampled on by each unworthy ass.
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Rich hated, wise suspected, scorn’d if poor;
Great fear’d, fair tempted, and high envied more.
Would the world now adopt me for his heir;
Would Beauty’s Queen entitle me the fair;
Fame speak me Honour’s minion; could I vie
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The bliss of angels; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow’d knees, strike Justice dumb
As well as blind and lame; and give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs; be called Master
In the loose lines of every poetaster.
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Could I be more than any man that lives,
Rich, wise, great, fair, all in superlatives;
I count one minute of my holy leisure
Beyond too much of all this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye careless groans!
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These are my guests, this is that courtage tones.
Ye winged people of the skies shall sing
Mine anthems; be my cellar, gentle spring.
Here dwells no hopeless loves, no palsy fears,
No short joys purchased with eternal tears;
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Here will I sit, and sigh my hot youth’s folly,
And learn to affect a holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger, then
I’ll never look for ’t but in Heaven again.
And when I die I’ll turn my cave
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Even from a chamber to a silent grave;
The falling spring upon the rock shall wear
Mine epitaph, and cause a briny tear
From him who asks who in this tomb doth lie.
The doleful Echo answers: It is I.
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