John Donne Selected Poems-5

TWICKENHAM GARDEN.

BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears,

Hither I come to seek the spring,

And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,

Receive such balms as else cure every thing.

But O ! self-traitor, 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 wholesomer for me that winter did

Benight the glory of this place,

And that a grave frost did forbid

These trees to laugh and mock me to my face ;

But that I may not this disgrace

Endure, nor yet leave loving, Love, let me

Some senseless piece of this place be ;

Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,

Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come,

And take my tears, which are loves wine,

And try your mistress tears at home,

For all are false, that taste not just like mine.

Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine,

Nor can you more judge womens thoughts by tears,

Than by her shadow what she wears.

O perverse sex, where none is true but she,

Whos therefore true, because her truth kills me.

VALEDICTION TO HIS BOOK.

ILL tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do

To anger destiny, as she doth us ;

How I shall stay, though she eloign me thus,

And how posterity shall know it too ;

How thine may out-endure

Sibyls glory, and obscure

Her who from Pindar could allure,

And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame,

And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name.

Study our manuscripts, those myriads

Of letters, which have past twixt thee and me ;

Thence write our annals, and in them will be

To all whom loves subliming fire invades,

Rule and example found ;

There the faith of any ground

No schismatic will dare to wound,

That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,

To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records.

This book, as long-lived as the elements,

Or as the worlds form, this all-gravèd tome

In cypher writ, or new made idiom ;

We for Loves clergy only are instruments ;

When this book is made thus,

Should again the ravenous

Vandals and Goths invade us,

Learning were safe ; in this our universe,

Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse.

Here Loves divines—since all divinity

Is love or wonder—may find all they seek,

Whether abstract spiritual love they like,

Their souls exhaled with what they do not see ;

Or, loth so to amuse

Faiths infirmity, they choose

Something which they may see and use ;

For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit,

Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.

Here more than in their books may lawyers find,

Both by what titles mistresses are ours,

And how prerogative these states devours,

Transferrd from Love himself, to womankind ;

Who, though from heart and eyes,

They exact great subsidies,

Forsake him who on them relies ;

And for the cause, honour, or conscience give ;

Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative.

Here statesmen—or of them, they which can read—

May of their occupation find the grounds ;

Love, and their art, alike it deadly wounds,

If to consider what tis, one proceed.

In both they do excel

Who the present govern well,

Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell ;

In this thy book, such will there something see,

As in the Bible some can find out alchemy.

Thus vent thy thoughts ; abroad Ill study thee,

As he removes far off, that great heights takes ;

How great love is, presence best trial makes,

But absence tries how long this love will be ;

To take a latitude

Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewd

At their brightest, but to conclude

Of longitudes, what other way have we,

But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be?

COMMUNITY.

GOOD we must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still ;

But there are things indifferent,

Which wee may neither hate, nor love,

But one, and then another prove,

As we shall find our fancy bent.

If then at first wise Nature had

Made women either good or bad,

Then some wee might hate, and some choose ;

But since she did them so create,

That we may neither love, nor hate,

Only this rests, all all may use.

If they were good it would be seen ;

Good is as visible as green,

And to all eyes itself betrays.

If they were bad, they could not last ;

Bad doth itself, and others waste ;

So they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours ;

He that but tastes, he that devours,

And he that leaves all, doth as well ;

Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat ;

And when he hath the kernel eat,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

LOVES GROWTH.

I SCARCE believe my love to be so pure

As I had thought it was,

Because it doth endure

Vicissitude, and season, as the grass ;

Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore

My love was infinite, if spring make it more.

But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow

With more, not only be no quintessence,

But mixd of all stuffs, vexing soul, or sense,

And of the sun his active vigour borrow,

Love抯 not so pure, and abstract as they use

To say, which have no mistress but their Muse ;

But as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,

Love by the spring is grown ;

As in the firmament

Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,

Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,

From loves awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stirrd more circles be

Produced by one, love such additions take,

Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,

For they are all concentric unto thee ;

And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in times of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate this spring抯 increase.

LOVES EXCHANGE.

LOVE, any devil else but you

Would for a given soul give something too.

At court your fellows every day

Give th art of rhyming, huntsmanship, or play,

For them which were their own before ;

Only I have nothing, which gave more,

But am, alas ! by being lowly, lower.

I ask no dispensation now,

To falsify a tear, or sigh, or vow ;

I do not sue from thee to draw

A non obstante on natures law ;

These are prerogatives, they inhere

In thee and thine ; none should forswear

Except that he Loves minion were.

Give me thy weakness, make me blind,

Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and mind ;

Love, let me never know that this

Is love, or, that love childish is ;

Let me not know that others know

That she knows my paines, lest that so

A tender shame make me mine own new woe.

If thou give nothing, yet thou rt just,

Because I would not thy first motions trust ;

Small towns which stand stiff, till great shot

Enforce them, by wars law condition not ;

Such in Loves warfare is my case ;

I may not article for grace,

Having put Love at last to show this face.

This face, by which he could command

And change th idolatry of any land,

This face, which, wheresoeer it comes,

Can call vowd men from cloisters, dead from tombs,

And melt both poles at once, and store

Deserts with cities, and make more

Mines in the earth, than quarries were before.

For this Love is enraged with me,

Yet kills not ; if I must example be

To future rebels, if th unborn

Must learn by my being cut up and torn,

Kill, and dissect me, Love ; for this

Torture against thine own end is ;

Rackd carcasses make ill anatomies.

CONFINED LOVE.

Some man unworthy to be possessor

Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,

Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,

If on womankind he might his anger wreak ;

And thence a law did grow,

One might but one man know ;

But are other creatures so?

Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden

To smile where they list, or lend away their light?

Are birds divorced or are they chidden

If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?

Beasts do no jointures lose

Though they new lovers choose ;

But we are made worse than those.

Who eer riggd fair ships to lie in harbours,

And not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?

Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,

Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?

Good is not good, unless

A thousand it possess,

But doth waste with greediness.

THE DREAM.

DEAR love, for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream ;

It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for fantasy.

Therefore thou wakedst me wisely ; yet

My dream thou brokest not, but continuedst it.

Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice

To make dreams truths, and fables histories ;

Enter these arms, for since thou thoughtst it best,

Not to dream all my dream, lets act the rest.

As lightning, or a tapers light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me ;

Yet I thought thee

—For thou lovest truth—an angel, at first sight ;

But when I saw thou sawst my heart,

And knewst my thoughts beyond an angels art,

When thou knewst what I dreamt, when thou knewst when

Excess of joy would wake me, and camest then,

I must confess, it could not choose but be

Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.

Coming and staying showd thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now

Thou art not thou.

That love is weak where fears as strong as he ;

Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,

If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have ;

Perchance as torches, which must ready be,

Men light and put out, so thou dealst with me ;

Thou camest to kindle, gost to come ; then I

Will dream that hope again, but else would die.