{"id":29,"date":"2021-06-04T12:09:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T16:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/chapter\/john-donne\/"},"modified":"2024-08-08T15:53:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T19:53:47","slug":"john-donne","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/chapter\/john-donne\/","title":{"raw":"John Donne","rendered":"John Donne"},"content":{"raw":"

The Canonization<\/h1>\nFor God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,\nOr chide my palsy, or my gout,\nMy five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,\nWith wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,\nTake you a course, get you a place,\nObserve his honor, or his grace,\nOr the king's real, or his stamp\u00e8d face\nContemplate; what you will, approve,\nSo you will let me love.\n\nAlas, alas, who's injured by my love?\nWhat merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?\nWho says my tears have overflowed his ground?\nWhen did my colds a forward spring remove?\nWhen did the heats which my veins fill\nAdd one more to the plaguy bill?\nSoldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still\nLitigious men, which quarrels move,\nThough she and I do love.\n\nCall us what you will, we are made such by love;\nCall her one, me another fly,\nWe're tapers too, and at our own cost die,\nAnd we in us find the eagle and the dove.\nThe ph\u0153nix riddle hath more wit\nBy us; we two being one, are it.\nSo, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.\nWe die and rise the same, and prove\nMysterious by this love.\n\nWe can die by it, if not live by love,\nAnd if unfit for tombs and hearse\nOur legend be, it will be fit for verse;\nAnd if no piece of chronicle we prove,\nWe'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;\nAs well a well-wrought urn becomes\nThe greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,\nAnd by these hymns, all shall approve\nUs canonized for Love.\n\nAnd thus invoke us: \"You, whom reverend love\nMade one another's hermitage;\nYou, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;\nWho did the whole world's soul contract, and drove\nInto the glasses of your eyes\n(So made such mirrors, and such spies,\nThat they did all to you epitomize)\nCountries, towns, courts: beg from above\nA pattern of your love!\"\n

The Ecstasy<\/h1>\nWhere, like a pillow on a bed\nA pregnant bank swell'd up to rest\nThe violet's reclining head,\nSat we two, one another's best.\nOur hands were firmly cemented\nWith a fast balm, which thence did spring;\nOur eye-beams twisted, and did thread\nOur eyes upon one double string;\nSo to'intergraft our hands, as yet\nWas all the means to make us one,\nAnd pictures in our eyes to get\nWas all our propagation.\nAs 'twixt two equal armies fate\nSuspends uncertain victory,\nOur souls (which to advance their state\nWere gone out) hung 'twixt her and me.\nAnd whilst our souls negotiate there,\nWe like sepulchral statues lay;\nAll day, the same our postures were,\nAnd we said nothing, all the day.\nIf any, so by love refin'd\nThat he soul's language understood,\nAnd by good love were grown all mind,\nWithin convenient distance stood,\nHe (though he knew not which soul spake,\nBecause both meant, both spake the same)\nMight thence a new concoction take\nAnd part far purer than he came.\nThis ecstasy doth unperplex,\nWe said, and tell us what we love;\nWe see by this it was not sex,\nWe see we saw not what did move;\nBut as all several souls contain\nMixture of things, they know not what,\nLove these mix'd souls doth mix again\nAnd makes both one, each this and that.\nA single violet transplant,\nThe strength, the colour, and the size,\n(All which before was poor and scant)\nRedoubles still, and multiplies.\nWhen love with one another so\nInterinanimates two souls,\nThat abler soul, which thence doth flow,\nDefects of loneliness controls.\nWe then, who are this new soul, know\nOf what we are compos'd and made,\nFor th' atomies of which we grow\nAre souls, whom no change can invade.\nBut oh alas, so long, so far,\nOur bodies why do we forbear?\nThey'are ours, though they'are not we; we are\nThe intelligences, they the spheres.\nWe owe them thanks, because they thus\nDid us, to us, at first convey,\nYielded their senses' force to us,\nNor are dross to us, but allay.\nOn man heaven's influence works not so,\nBut that it first imprints the air;\nSo soul into the soul may flow,\nThough it to body first repair.\nAs our blood labors to beget\nSpirits, as like souls as it can,\nBecause such fingers need to knit\nThat subtle knot which makes us man,\nSo must pure lovers' souls descend\nT' affections, and to faculties,\nWhich sense may reach and apprehend,\nElse a great prince in prison lies.\nTo'our bodies turn we then, that so\nWeak men on love reveal'd may look;\nLove's mysteries in souls do grow,\nBut yet the body is his book.\nAnd if some lover, such as we,\nHave heard this dialogue of one,\nLet him still mark us, he shall see\nSmall change, when we'are to bodies gone.\n

A Burnt Ship<\/h1>\nOut of a fired ship, which by no way\nBut drowning could be rescued from the flame,\nSome men leap'd forth, and ever as they came\nNear the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;\nSo all were lost, which in the ship were found,\nThey in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown'd.\n

The Flea<\/h1>\nMark but this flea, and mark in this,\nHow little that which thou deniest me is;\nIt sucked me first, and now sucks thee,\nAnd in this flea our two bloods mingled be;\nThou know\u2019st that this cannot be said\nA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,\nYet this enjoys before it woo,\nAnd pampered swells with one blood made of two,\nAnd this, alas, is more than we would do.\n\nOh stay, three lives in one flea spare,\nWhere we almost, nay more than married are.\nThis flea is you and I, and this\nOur marriage bed, and marriage temple is;\nThough parents grudge, and you, w'are met,\nAnd cloistered in these living walls of jet.\nThough use make you apt to kill me,\nLet not to that, self-murder added be,\nAnd sacrilege, three sins in killing three.\n\nCruel and sudden, hast thou since\nPurpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?\nWherein could this flea guilty be,\nExcept in that drop which it sucked from thee?\nYet thou triumph\u2019st, and say'st that thou\nFind\u2019st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;\n\u2019Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:\nJust so much honor, when thou yield\u2019st to me,\nWill waste, as this flea\u2019s death took life from thee.\n

The Good-Morrow<\/h1>\nI wonder, by my troth, what thou and I\nDid, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?\nBut sucked on country pleasures, childishly?\nOr snorted we in the Seven Sleepers\u2019 den?\n\u2019Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.\nIf ever any beauty I did see,\nWhich I desired, and got, \u2019twas but a dream of thee.\n\nAnd now good-morrow to our waking souls,\nWhich watch not one another out of fear;\nFor love, all love of other sights controls,\nAnd makes one little room an everywhere.\nLet sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,\nLet maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,\nLet us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.\n\nMy face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,\nAnd true plain hearts do in the faces rest;\nWhere can we find two better hemispheres,\nWithout sharp north, without declining west?\nWhatever dies, was not mixed equally;\nIf our two loves be one, or, thou and I\nLove so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.\n

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning<\/h1>\nAs virtuous men pass mildly away,\nAnd whisper to their souls to go,\nWhilst some of their sad friends do say\nThe breath goes now, and some say, No:\n\nSo let us melt, and make no noise,\nNo tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;\n'Twere profanation of our joys\nTo tell the laity our love.\n\nMoving of th' earth brings harms and fears,\nMen reckon what it did, and meant;\nBut trepidation of the spheres,\nThough greater far, is innocent.\n\nDull sublunary lovers' love\n(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit\nAbsence, because it doth remove\nThose things which elemented it.\n\nBut we by a love so much refined,\nThat our selves know not what it is,\nInter-assured of the mind,\nCare less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.\n\nOur two souls therefore, which are one,\nThough I must go, endure not yet\nA breach, but an expansion,\nLike gold to airy thinness beat.\n\nIf they be two, they are two so\nAs stiff twin compasses are two;\nThy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show\nTo move, but doth, if the other do.\n\nAnd though it in the center sit,\nYet when the other far doth roam,\nIt leans and hearkens after it,\nAnd grows erect, as that comes home.\n\nSuch wilt thou be to me, who must,\nLike th' other foot, obliquely run;\nThy firmness makes my circle just,\nAnd makes me end where I begun.\n

The Sun Rising<\/h1>\nBusy old fool, unruly sun,\nWhy dost thou thus,\nThrough windows, and through curtains call on us?\nMust to thy motions lovers' seasons run?\nSaucy pedantic wretch, go chide\nLate school boys and sour\u00a0prentices,\nGo tell court huntsmen that\u00a0the king will ride,\nCall country ants to harvest offices,\nLove, all alike, no season knows nor clime,\nNor hours, days, months, which are the\u00a0rags of time.\n\nThy beams, so\u00a0reverend\u00a0and strong\nWhy shouldst thou think?\nI could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,\nBut that I would not lose her sight so long;\nIf her eyes have not blinded thine,\nLook, and tomorrow late, tell me,\nWhether\u00a0both th' Indias of spice and mine\nBe where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.\nAsk for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,\nAnd thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.\n\nShe's all states, and all princes, I,\nNothing else is.\nPrinces do but play us; compared to this,\nAll honor's mimic, all wealth\u00a0alchemy.\nThou, sun, art half as happy as we,\nIn that the world's contracted thus.\nThine age asks ease, and since thy duties be\nTo warm the world, that's done in warming us.\nShine here to us, and thou art everywhere;\nThis bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.\n

Batter my heart, three-person\u2019d God<\/h1>\nBatter my heart, three-person'd God, for you\nAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;\nThat I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend\nYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.\nI, like an usurp'd town to another due,\nLabor to admit you, but oh, to no end;\nReason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,\nBut is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.\nYet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,\nBut am betroth'd unto your enemy;\nDivorce me, untie or break that knot again,\nTake me to you, imprison me, for I,\nExcept you enthrall me, never shall be free,\nNor ever chaste, except you ravish me.\n

Go and catch a falling star<\/h1>\nGo and catch a falling star,\nGet with child a mandrake root,\nTell me where all past years are,\nOr who cleft the devil's foot,\nTeach me to hear mermaids singing,\nOr to keep off envy's stinging,\nAnd find\nWhat wind\nServes to advance an honest mind.\n\nIf thou be'st born to strange sights,\nThings invisible to see,\nRide ten thousand days and nights,\nTill age snow white hairs on thee,\nThou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,\nAll strange wonders that befell thee,\nAnd swear,\nNo where\nLives a woman true, and fair.\n\nIf thou find'st one, let me know,\nSuch a pilgrimage were sweet;\nYet do not, I would not go,\nThough at next door we might meet;\nThough she were true, when you met her,\nAnd last, till you write your letter,\nYet she\nWill be\nFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.\n

To his mistress going to bed<\/h1>\nCome, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,\nUntil I labour, I in labour lie.\nThe foe oft-times having the foe in sight,\nIs tir\u2019d with standing though he never fight.\nOff with that girdle, like heaven\u2019s Zone glistering,\nBut a far fairer world encompassing.\nUnpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,\nThat th\u2019eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.\nUnlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,\nTells me from you, that now it is bed time.\nOff with that happy busk, which I envy,\nThat still can be, and still can stand so nigh.\nYour gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,\nAs when from flowery meads th\u2019hill\u2019s shadow steals.\nOff with that wiry Coronet and shew\nThe hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:\nNow off with those shoes, and then safely tread\nIn this love\u2019s hallow\u2019d temple, this soft bed.\nIn such white robes, heaven\u2019s Angels used to be\nReceived by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee\nA heaven like Mahomet\u2019s Paradise; and though\nIll spirits walk in white, we easily know,\nBy this these Angels from an evil sprite,\nThose set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.\nLicence my roving hands, and let them go,\nBefore, behind, between, above, below.\nO my America! my new-found-land,\nMy kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann\u2019d,\nMy Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,\nHow blest am I in this discovering thee!\nTo enter in these bonds, is to be free;\nThen where my hand is set, my seal shall be.\nFull nakedness! All joys are due to thee,\nAs souls unbodied, bodies uncloth\u2019d must be,\nTo taste whole joys. Gems which you women use\nAre like Atlanta\u2019s balls, cast in men\u2019s views,\nThat when a fool\u2019s eye lighteth on a Gem,\nHis earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.\nLike pictures, or like books\u2019 gay coverings made\nFor lay-men, are all women thus array\u2019d;\nThemselves are mystic books, which only we\n(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)\nMust see reveal\u2019d. Then since that I may know;\nAs liberally, as to a Midwife, shew\nThy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,\nThere is no penance due to innocence.\nTo teach thee, I am naked first; why then\nWhat needst thou have more covering than a man.\n\n
\n\n

Sources<\/h2>\n\u201cThe Canonization\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cThe Ecstasy\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cA Burnt Ship\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cThe Flea\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cThe Good-Morrow\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cA Valediction: Forbidding Mourning\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cThe Sun Rising\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cBatter my heart, three-person\u2019d God\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cGo and catch a falling star\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cTo his mistress going to bed\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n \n\n ","rendered":"

The Canonization<\/h1>\n

For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
\nOr chide my palsy, or my gout,
\nMy five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
\nWith wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
\nTake you a course, get you a place,
\nObserve his honor, or his grace,
\nOr the king’s real, or his stamp\u00e8d face
\nContemplate; what you will, approve,
\nSo you will let me love.<\/p>\n

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?
\nWhat merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?
\nWho says my tears have overflowed his ground?
\nWhen did my colds a forward spring remove?
\nWhen did the heats which my veins fill
\nAdd one more to the plaguy bill?
\nSoldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
\nLitigious men, which quarrels move,
\nThough she and I do love.<\/p>\n

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
\nCall her one, me another fly,
\nWe’re tapers too, and at our own cost die,
\nAnd we in us find the eagle and the dove.
\nThe ph\u0153nix riddle hath more wit
\nBy us; we two being one, are it.
\nSo, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
\nWe die and rise the same, and prove
\nMysterious by this love.<\/p>\n

We can die by it, if not live by love,
\nAnd if unfit for tombs and hearse
\nOur legend be, it will be fit for verse;
\nAnd if no piece of chronicle we prove,
\nWe’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
\nAs well a well-wrought urn becomes
\nThe greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
\nAnd by these hymns, all shall approve
\nUs canonized for Love.<\/p>\n

And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love
\nMade one another’s hermitage;
\nYou, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
\nWho did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove
\nInto the glasses of your eyes
\n(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
\nThat they did all to you epitomize)
\nCountries, towns, courts: beg from above
\nA pattern of your love!”<\/p>\n

The Ecstasy<\/h1>\n

Where, like a pillow on a bed
\nA pregnant bank swell’d up to rest
\nThe violet’s reclining head,
\nSat we two, one another’s best.
\nOur hands were firmly cemented
\nWith a fast balm, which thence did spring;
\nOur eye-beams twisted, and did thread
\nOur eyes upon one double string;
\nSo to’intergraft our hands, as yet
\nWas all the means to make us one,
\nAnd pictures in our eyes to get
\nWas all our propagation.
\nAs ‘twixt two equal armies fate
\nSuspends uncertain victory,
\nOur souls (which to advance their state
\nWere gone out) hung ‘twixt her and me.
\nAnd whilst our souls negotiate there,
\nWe like sepulchral statues lay;
\nAll day, the same our postures were,
\nAnd we said nothing, all the day.
\nIf any, so by love refin’d
\nThat he soul’s language understood,
\nAnd by good love were grown all mind,
\nWithin convenient distance stood,
\nHe (though he knew not which soul spake,
\nBecause both meant, both spake the same)
\nMight thence a new concoction take
\nAnd part far purer than he came.
\nThis ecstasy doth unperplex,
\nWe said, and tell us what we love;
\nWe see by this it was not sex,
\nWe see we saw not what did move;
\nBut as all several souls contain
\nMixture of things, they know not what,
\nLove these mix’d souls doth mix again
\nAnd makes both one, each this and that.
\nA single violet transplant,
\nThe strength, the colour, and the size,
\n(All which before was poor and scant)
\nRedoubles still, and multiplies.
\nWhen love with one another so
\nInterinanimates two souls,
\nThat abler soul, which thence doth flow,
\nDefects of loneliness controls.
\nWe then, who are this new soul, know
\nOf what we are compos’d and made,
\nFor th’ atomies of which we grow
\nAre souls, whom no change can invade.
\nBut oh alas, so long, so far,
\nOur bodies why do we forbear?
\nThey’are ours, though they’are not we; we are
\nThe intelligences, they the spheres.
\nWe owe them thanks, because they thus
\nDid us, to us, at first convey,
\nYielded their senses’ force to us,
\nNor are dross to us, but allay.
\nOn man heaven’s influence works not so,
\nBut that it first imprints the air;
\nSo soul into the soul may flow,
\nThough it to body first repair.
\nAs our blood labors to beget
\nSpirits, as like souls as it can,
\nBecause such fingers need to knit
\nThat subtle knot which makes us man,
\nSo must pure lovers’ souls descend
\nT’ affections, and to faculties,
\nWhich sense may reach and apprehend,
\nElse a great prince in prison lies.
\nTo’our bodies turn we then, that so
\nWeak men on love reveal’d may look;
\nLove’s mysteries in souls do grow,
\nBut yet the body is his book.
\nAnd if some lover, such as we,
\nHave heard this dialogue of one,
\nLet him still mark us, he shall see
\nSmall change, when we’are to bodies gone.<\/p>\n

A Burnt Ship<\/h1>\n

Out of a fired ship, which by no way
\nBut drowning could be rescued from the flame,
\nSome men leap’d forth, and ever as they came
\nNear the foes’ ships, did by their shot decay;
\nSo all were lost, which in the ship were found,
\nThey in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown’d.<\/p>\n

The Flea<\/h1>\n

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
\nHow little that which thou deniest me is;
\nIt sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
\nAnd in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
\nThou know\u2019st that this cannot be said
\nA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
\nYet this enjoys before it woo,
\nAnd pampered swells with one blood made of two,
\nAnd this, alas, is more than we would do.<\/p>\n

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
\nWhere we almost, nay more than married are.
\nThis flea is you and I, and this
\nOur marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
\nThough parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
\nAnd cloistered in these living walls of jet.
\nThough use make you apt to kill me,
\nLet not to that, self-murder added be,
\nAnd sacrilege, three sins in killing three.<\/p>\n

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
\nPurpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
\nWherein could this flea guilty be,
\nExcept in that drop which it sucked from thee?
\nYet thou triumph\u2019st, and say’st that thou
\nFind\u2019st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
\n\u2019Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
\nJust so much honor, when thou yield\u2019st to me,
\nWill waste, as this flea\u2019s death took life from thee.<\/p>\n

The Good-Morrow<\/h1>\n

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
\nDid, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
\nBut sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
\nOr snorted we in the Seven Sleepers\u2019 den?
\n\u2019Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
\nIf ever any beauty I did see,
\nWhich I desired, and got, \u2019twas but a dream of thee.<\/p>\n

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
\nWhich watch not one another out of fear;
\nFor love, all love of other sights controls,
\nAnd makes one little room an everywhere.
\nLet sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
\nLet maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
\nLet us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.<\/p>\n

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
\nAnd true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
\nWhere can we find two better hemispheres,
\nWithout sharp north, without declining west?
\nWhatever dies, was not mixed equally;
\nIf our two loves be one, or, thou and I
\nLove so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.<\/p>\n

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning<\/h1>\n

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
\nAnd whisper to their souls to go,
\nWhilst some of their sad friends do say
\nThe breath goes now, and some say, No:<\/p>\n

So let us melt, and make no noise,
\nNo tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
\n‘Twere profanation of our joys
\nTo tell the laity our love.<\/p>\n

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,
\nMen reckon what it did, and meant;
\nBut trepidation of the spheres,
\nThough greater far, is innocent.<\/p>\n

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
\n(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
\nAbsence, because it doth remove
\nThose things which elemented it.<\/p>\n

But we by a love so much refined,
\nThat our selves know not what it is,
\nInter-assured of the mind,
\nCare less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.<\/p>\n

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
\nThough I must go, endure not yet
\nA breach, but an expansion,
\nLike gold to airy thinness beat.<\/p>\n

If they be two, they are two so
\nAs stiff twin compasses are two;
\nThy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
\nTo move, but doth, if the other do.<\/p>\n

And though it in the center sit,
\nYet when the other far doth roam,
\nIt leans and hearkens after it,
\nAnd grows erect, as that comes home.<\/p>\n

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
\nLike th’ other foot, obliquely run;
\nThy firmness makes my circle just,
\nAnd makes me end where I begun.<\/p>\n

The Sun Rising<\/h1>\n

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
\nWhy dost thou thus,
\nThrough windows, and through curtains call on us?
\nMust to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
\nSaucy pedantic wretch, go chide
\nLate school boys and sour\u00a0prentices,
\nGo tell court huntsmen that\u00a0the king will ride,
\nCall country ants to harvest offices,
\nLove, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
\nNor hours, days, months, which are the\u00a0rags of time.<\/p>\n

Thy beams, so\u00a0reverend\u00a0and strong
\nWhy shouldst thou think?
\nI could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
\nBut that I would not lose her sight so long;
\nIf her eyes have not blinded thine,
\nLook, and tomorrow late, tell me,
\nWhether\u00a0both th’ Indias of spice and mine
\nBe where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
\nAsk for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
\nAnd thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.<\/p>\n

She’s all states, and all princes, I,
\nNothing else is.
\nPrinces do but play us; compared to this,
\nAll honor’s mimic, all wealth\u00a0alchemy.
\nThou, sun, art half as happy as we,
\nIn that the world’s contracted thus.
\nThine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
\nTo warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
\nShine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
\nThis bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.<\/p>\n

Batter my heart, three-person\u2019d God<\/h1>\n

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
\nAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
\nThat I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
\nYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
\nI, like an usurp’d town to another due,
\nLabor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
\nReason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
\nBut is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
\nYet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
\nBut am betroth’d unto your enemy;
\nDivorce me, untie or break that knot again,
\nTake me to you, imprison me, for I,
\nExcept you enthrall me, never shall be free,
\nNor ever chaste, except you ravish me.<\/p>\n

Go and catch a falling star<\/h1>\n

Go and catch a falling star,
\nGet with child a mandrake root,
\nTell me where all past years are,
\nOr who cleft the devil’s foot,
\nTeach me to hear mermaids singing,
\nOr to keep off envy’s stinging,
\nAnd find
\nWhat wind
\nServes to advance an honest mind.<\/p>\n

If thou be’st born to strange sights,
\nThings invisible to see,
\nRide ten thousand days and nights,
\nTill age snow white hairs on thee,
\nThou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
\nAll strange wonders that befell thee,
\nAnd swear,
\nNo where
\nLives a woman true, and fair.<\/p>\n

If thou find’st one, let me know,
\nSuch a pilgrimage were sweet;
\nYet do not, I would not go,
\nThough at next door we might meet;
\nThough she were true, when you met her,
\nAnd last, till you write your letter,
\nYet she
\nWill be
\nFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.<\/p>\n

To his mistress going to bed<\/h1>\n

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
\nUntil I labour, I in labour lie.
\nThe foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
\nIs tir\u2019d with standing though he never fight.
\nOff with that girdle, like heaven\u2019s Zone glistering,
\nBut a far fairer world encompassing.
\nUnpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
\nThat th\u2019eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
\nUnlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,
\nTells me from you, that now it is bed time.
\nOff with that happy busk, which I envy,
\nThat still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
\nYour gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,
\nAs when from flowery meads th\u2019hill\u2019s shadow steals.
\nOff with that wiry Coronet and shew
\nThe hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:
\nNow off with those shoes, and then safely tread
\nIn this love\u2019s hallow\u2019d temple, this soft bed.
\nIn such white robes, heaven\u2019s Angels used to be
\nReceived by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee
\nA heaven like Mahomet\u2019s Paradise; and though
\nIll spirits walk in white, we easily know,
\nBy this these Angels from an evil sprite,
\nThose set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
\nLicence my roving hands, and let them go,
\nBefore, behind, between, above, below.
\nO my America! my new-found-land,
\nMy kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann\u2019d,
\nMy Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,
\nHow blest am I in this discovering thee!
\nTo enter in these bonds, is to be free;
\nThen where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
\nFull nakedness! All joys are due to thee,
\nAs souls unbodied, bodies uncloth\u2019d must be,
\nTo taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
\nAre like Atlanta\u2019s balls, cast in men\u2019s views,
\nThat when a fool\u2019s eye lighteth on a Gem,
\nHis earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.
\nLike pictures, or like books\u2019 gay coverings made
\nFor lay-men, are all women thus array\u2019d;
\nThemselves are mystic books, which only we
\n(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)
\nMust see reveal\u2019d. Then since that I may know;
\nAs liberally, as to a Midwife, shew
\nThy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,
\nThere is no penance due to innocence.
\nTo teach thee, I am naked first; why then
\nWhat needst thou have more covering than a man.<\/p>\n

\n

Sources<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe Canonization\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ecstasy\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Burnt Ship\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Flea\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Good-Morrow\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Valediction: Forbidding Mourning\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sun Rising\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBatter my heart, three-person\u2019d God\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo and catch a falling star\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo his mistress going to bed\u201d by John Donne is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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