Poetry

the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney, and the Countess of Pembroke, His Sister

Ode: Vengeance Will Sit Above Our Faults; But Till

To Mr. Tilman After He Had Taken Orders

A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s Last Going Into Germany

The Lamentations of Jeremy, for the Most Part According to Tremellius

1. Chapter I
2. Chapter II
3. Chapter III
4. Chapter IV
5. Chapter V

Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness

A Hymn to God the Father

Colophon

Uncopyright

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To the Right Honourable
William Lord Craven,
Baron of Hampsted-Marsham

My Lord,

Many of these poems have, for several impressions, wandered up and down, trusting (as well they might) upon the author’s reputation; neither do they now complain of any injury but what may proceed either from the kindness of the printer, or the courtesy of the reader; the one by adding something too much, lest any spark of this sacred fire might perish undiscerned, the other by putting such an estimation upon the wit and fancy they find here, that they are content to use it as their own: as if a man should dig out the stones of a royal amphitheatre to build a stage for a country show. Amongst all the monsters this unlucky age has teemed with, I find none so prodigious as the poets of these later times, wherein men, as if they would level understandings too as well as estates, acknowledging no inequality of parts and judgments, pretend as indifferently to the chair of wit as to the pulpit, and conceive themselves no less inspired with the spirit of poetry than with that of religion: so it is not only the noise of drams and trumpets which have drowned the Muses’ harmony, or the fear that the Church’s ruin will destroy their priests Likewise, that now frights them from this country, where they have been so ingenuously received; but these rude pretenders to excellencies they unjustly own, who profanely rushing into Minerva’s temple, with noisome airs blast the laurel which thunder cannot hurt. In this sad condition these learned sisters are fled over to beg your lordship’s protection, who have been so certain a patron both to arts and arms, and who in this general confusion have so entirely preserved your honour, that in your lordship we may still read a most perfect character of what England was in all her pomp and greatness, so that although these poems were formerly written upon several occasions, and to several persons, they now unite themselves, and are become one pyramid to set your lordship’s statue upon, where you may stand like armed Apollo the defender of the Muses, encouraging the poets now alive to celebrate your great acts by affording your countenance to his poems that wanted only so noble a subject.

My Lord,
Your most humble servant,
John Donne

Poetry

Songs and Sonnets

The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

Song

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.

Woman’s Constancy

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou