John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (25 page)

You that are she and you, that's double she,

In her dead face, half of yourself shall see;

She was the other part, for so they do

Which build them friendships, become one of two;

So two, that but themselves no third can fit,

Which were to be so, when they were not yet.

Twins, though their birth Cusco, and Musco take,

As divers stars one constellation make,

Paired like two eyes, have equal motion, so

Both but one means to see, one way to go;

Had you died first, a carcase she had been;

And we your rich tomb in her face had seen;

She like the soul is gone, and you here stay,

Not a live friend; but th' other half of clay;

And since you act that part, as men say, »Here

Lies such a Prince«, when but one part is there,

And do all honour and devotion due

Unto the whole, so we all reverence you;

For such a friendship who would not adore

In you, who are all what both was before,

Not all, as if some perished by this,

But so, as all in you contracted is;

As of this all, though many parts decay,

The pure which elemented them shall stay;

And though diffused, and spread in infinite,

Shall recollect, and in one all unite:

So madam, as her soul to heaven is fled,

Her flesh rests in the earth, as in a bed;

Her virtues do, as to their proper sphere,

Return to dwell with you, of whom they were;

As perfect motions are all circular,

So they to you, their sea, whence less streams are;

She was all spices, you all metals; so

In you two we did both rich Indies know;

And as no fire, nor rust can spend or waste

One dram of gold, but what was first shall last,

Though it be forced in water, earth, salt, air,

Expansed in infinite, none will impair;

So, to yourself you may additions take,

But nothing can you less, or changed make.

Seek not in seeking new, to seem to doubt,

That you can match her, or not be without;

But let some faithful book in her room be,

Yet but of Judith no such book as she.

Epitaph on Himself

To the Countess of Bedford

Madam,

That I might make your cabinet my tomb,

And for my fame which I love next my soul,

Next to my soul provide the happiest room,

Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.

Others by wills give legacies, but I

Dying, of you do beg a legacy.

OMNIBUS

My fortune and my choice this custom break,

When we are speechless grown, to make stones speak,

Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou

In my grave's inside seest what thou art now:

Yet thou'art not yet so good, till death us lay

To ripe and mellow here, we are stubborn clay.

Parents make us earth, and souls dignify

Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.

Whilst in our souls sin bred and pampered is,

Our souls become worm-eaten carcases;

So we ourselves miraculously destroy.

Here bodies with less miracle enjoy

Such privileges, enabled here to scale

Heaven, when the trumpet's air shall them exhale.

Hear this, and mend thyself, and thou mend'st me,

By making me being dead, do good to thee,

And think me well composed, that I could now

A last-sick hour to syllables allow.

A Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mistress Essex Rich, from Amiens

Madame,

Here, where by all, all saints invoked are

T'were too much schism to be singular,

And 'gainst a practice general to war;

Yet, turning to saints, should my humility

To other saint, than you, directed be,

That were to make my schism heresy.

Nor would I be a convertite so cold

As not to tell it; if this be too bold,

Pardons are in this market cheaply sold.

Where, because faith is in too low degree,

I thought it some apostleship in me,

To speak things which by faith alone I see:

That is, of you; who are a firmament

Of virtues, where no one is grown, nor spent;

They'are your materials, not your ornament.

Others, whom we call virtuous, are not so

In their whole substance, but their virtues grow

But in their humours, and at seasons show.

For when through tasteless flat humility,

In dough-baked men, some harmlessness we see,

'Tis but his phlegm that's virtuous, and not he.

So is the blood sometimes; who ever ran

To danger unimportuned, he was then

No better than a sanguine virtuous man.

So cloistral men who in pretence of fear,

All contributions to this life forbear,

Have virtue in melancholy, and only there.

Spiritual choleric critics, which in all

Religions, find faults, and forgive no fall,

Have, through this zeal, virtue, but in their gall.

We'are thus but parcel-gilt; to gold we'are grown,

When virtue is our soul's complexion;

Who knows his virtue's name, or place, hath none.

Virtue is but aguish, when 'tis several;

By'occasion waked, and circumstantial;

True virtue is soul, always in all deeds all.

This virtue, thinking to give dignity

To your soul, found there no infirmity;

For your soul was as good virtue as she.

She therefore wrought upon that part of you,

Which is scarce less than soul, as she could do,

And so hath made your beauty virtue too;

Hence comes it, that your beauty wounds not hearts

As others, with profane and sensual darts,

But, as an influence, virtuous thoughts imparts.

But if such friends, by the'honour of your sight

Grow capable of this so great a light,

As to partake your virtues, and their might,

What must I think that influence must do,

Where it finds sympathy, and matter too,

Virtue, and beauty, of the same stuff, as you:

Which is, your noble worthy sister; she,

Of whom, if what in this my ecstasy

And revelation of you both, I see,

I should write here, as in short galleries

The master at the end large glasses ties,

So to present the room twice to our eyes,

So I should give this letter length, and say

That which I said of you, there is no way

From either, but by th' other, not to stray.

May therefore this be'enough to testify

My true devotion, free from flattery.

He that believes himself, doth never lie.

To the Honourable lady

the lady Carew.

To the Countess of Huntingdon

Madam,

Man to God's image, Eve, to man's was made,

Nor find we that God breathed a soul in her,

Canons will not Church functions you invade,

Nor laws to civil office you prefer.

Who vagrant transitory comets sees,

Wonders, because they are rare; but a new star

Whose motion with the firmament agrees,

Is miracle; for, there no new things are;

In woman so perchance mild innocence

A seldom comet is, but active good

A miracle, which reason 'scapes, and sense;

For, art and nature this in them withstood.

As such a star, the Magi led to view

The manger-cradled infant, God below:

By virtue's beams by fame derived from you,

May apt souls, and the worst may, virtue know.

If the world's age, and death be argued well

By the sun's fall, which now towards earth doth bend,

Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell

So low as woman, should be near her end.

But she's not stooped, but raised; exiled by men

She fled to heaven, that's heavenly things, that's you,

She was in all men, thinly scattered then,

But now amassed, contracted in a few.

She gilded us: but you are gold, and she;

Us she informed, but transubstantiates you;

Soft dispositions which ductile be,

Elixir-like, she makes not clean, but new.

Though you a wife's and mother's name retain,

'Tis not as woman, for all are not so,

But virtue having made you virtue, is fain

To adhere in these names, her and you to show,

Else, being alike pure, we should neither see,

As, water being into air rarefied,

Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,

So, for our sakes you do low names abide;

Taught by great constellations, which being framed

Of the most stars, take low names, Crab, and Bull,

When single planets by the gods are named,

You covet not great names, of great things full.

So you, as woman, one doth comprehend,

And in the veil of kindred others see;

To some ye are revealed, as in a friend,

And as a virtuous prince far off, to me.

To whom, because from you all virtues flow,

And 'tis not none, to dare contemplate you,

I, which do so, as your true subject owe

Some tribute for that, so these lines are due.

If you can think these flatteries, they are,

For then your judgement is below my praise,

If they were so, oft, flatteries work as far,

As counsels, and as far th' endeavour raise.

So my ill reaching you might there grow good,

But I remain a poisoned fountain still;

But not your beauty, virtue, knowledge, blood

Are more above all flattery, than my will.

And if I flatter any, 'tis not you

But my own judgement, who did long ago

Pronounce, that all these praises should be true,

And virtue should your beauty, and birth outgrow.

Now that my prophecies are all fulfilled,

Rather than God should not be honoured too,

And all these gifts confessed, which he instilled,

Yourself were bound to say that which I do.

So I, but your recorder am in this,

Or mouth, or speaker of the universe,

A ministerial notary, for 'tis

Not I, but you and fame, that make this verse;

I was your prophet in your younger days,

And now your chaplain, God in you to praise.

To the Countess of Huntingdon

That unripe side of earth, that heavy clime

That gives us man up now, like Adam's time

Before he ate; man's shape, that would yet be

(Knew they not it, and feared beasts' company)

So naked at this day, as though man there

From Paradise so great a distance were,

As yet the news could not arrived be

Of Adam's tasting the forbidden tree;

Deprived of that free state which they were in,

And wanting the reward, yet bear the sin.

But, as from extreme heights who downward looks,

Sees men at children's shapes, rivers at brooks,

And loseth younger forms; so, to your eye

These (Madam) that without your distance lie,

Must either mist, or nothing seem to be,

Who are at home but wit's mere
atomi.

But, I who can behold them move, and stay,

Have found myself to you, just their midway;

And now must pity them; for, as they do

Seem sick to me, just so must I to you.

Yet neither will I vex your eyes to see

A sighing ode, nor cross-armed elegy.

I come not to call pity from your heart,

Like some white-livered dotard that would part

Else from his slippery soul with a faint groan,

And faithfully, (without you smiled) were gone.

I cannot feel the tempest of a frown,

I may be raised by love, but not thrown down.

Though I can pity those sigh twice a day,

I hate that thing whispers itself away.

Yet since all love is fever, who to trees

Doth talk, doth yet in love's cold ague freeze.

'Tis love, but, with such fatal weakness made,

That it destroys itself with its own shade.

Who first looked sad, grieved, pined, and showed his pain,

Was he that first taught women to disdain.

As all things were one nothing, dull and weak,

Until this raw disordered heap did break,

And several desires led parts away,

Water declined with earth, the air did stay,

Fire rose, and each from other but untied,

Themselves unprisoned were and purified;

So was love, first in vast confusion hid,

An unripe willingness which nothing did,

A thirst, an appetite which had no ease,

That found a want, but knew not what would please.

What pretty innocence in those days moved!

Man ignorantly walked by her he loved;

Both sighed and interchanged a speaking eye,

Both trembled and were sick, both knew not why.

That natural fearfulness that struck man dumb,

Might well (those times considered) man become.

As all discoverers whose first assay

Finds but the place, after, the nearest way:

So passion is to woman's love, about,

Nay, farther off, than when we first set out.

It is not love that sueth, or doth contend;

Love either conquers, or but meets a friend.

Man's better part consists of purer fire,

And finds itself allowed, ere it desire.

Love is wise here, keeps home, gives reason sway,

And journeys not till it find summer way.

A weather-beaten lover but once known,

Is sport for every girl to practise on.

Who strives through woman's scorns, women to know,

Is lost, and seeks his shadow to outgo;

It must be sickness, after one disdain,