Poetry

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A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady as I could wish my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress’ glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now, and, as these isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
As lead, when a fired church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty and our trim decays,
Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
The fighting-place now seamen’s rags supply;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanterns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, today and yesterday.
Earth’s hollownesses, which the world’s lungs are,
Have no more wind than th’ upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture together draws
Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes’ maws;
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
Each one, his own priest and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply,
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath
No more refreshing than a brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboil’d wretches, on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encaged, the shepherds’ scoff,
Or like slack-sinew’d Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th’ emperor’s loved snake invade,
The crawling gallies, seagulls, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being beloved and loving, or the thirst
Of honour or fair death, out-push’d me first,
I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
A desperate may live, and coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, ’gainst which we all forget to pray.
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was?
Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.

To Sir Henry Wotton

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls,
For thus, friends absent speak. This ease controls
The tediousness of my life; but for these
I could ideate nothing which could please;
But I should wither in one day, and pass
To a bottle of hay, that am a lock of grass.
Life is a voyage, and in our lives’ ways
Countries, courts, towns are rocks, or remoras;
They break or stop all ships, yet our state’s such,
That though than pitch they stain worse, we must touch.
If in the furnace of the raging line,
Or under th’ adverse icy pole thou pine,
Thou know’st two temperate regions, girded in,
Dwell there; but O, what refuge canst thou win
Parch’d in the court, and in the country frozen?
Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen?
Can dung or garlic be perfume? Or can
A scorpion or torpedo cure a man?
Cities are worst of all three; of all three?
O knotty riddle! each is worst equally.
Cities are sepulchres; they who dwell there
Are carcases, as if none such there were.
And courts are theatres, where some men play
Princes, some slaves, all to one end, of one clay.
The country is a desert, where the good,
Gain’d, inhabits not, born, is not understood.
There men become beasts, and prone to all evils;
In cities blocks, and in a lewd court devils.
As in the first chaos, confusedly,
Each element’s qualities were in th’ other three,
So pride, lust, covetise, being several
To these three places, yet all are in all,
And mingled thus, their issue is incestuous.
Falsehood is denizen’d; virtue is barbarous.
Let no man say there, “Virtue’s flinty wall
Shall lock vice in me, I’ll do none, but know all.”
Men are sponges, which, to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings sin began,
Angels sinn’d first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity.
I think if men, which in these places live,
Durst look in themselves, and themselves retrieve,
They would like strangers greet themselves, seeing then
Utopian youth grown old Italian.

Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn anywhere; continuance maketh hell.
And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home;
Follow⁠—for he is easy paced⁠—this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy gaol.
And in the world’s sea do not like cork sleep
Upon the water’s face; nor in the deep
Sink like a lead without a line; but as
Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,
Nor making sound; so closely thy course go,
Let men dispute, whether thou breathe or no.
Only in this be no Galenist⁠—to make
Courts’ hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dram of country’s dullness; do not add
Correctives, but, as chemics, purge the bad.
But, sir, I advise not you, I rather do
Say o’er those lessons, which I learn’d of you;
Whom, free from Germany’s schisms, and lightness
Of France, and fair Italy’s faithlessness,
Having from these suck’d all they had of worth,
And brought home that faith which you carried forth,
I thoroughly love; but if myself I’ve won
To know my rules, I have, and you have Donne.

To Sir Henry Goodyere

Who makes the past a pattern for next year,
Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads;
Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear,
And makes his life but like a pair of beads.

A palace, when ’tis that which it should be,
Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays;
But he which dwells there is not so; for he
Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise.

So had your body her morning, hath her noon,
And shall not better; her next change is night;
But her fair, larger guest, to whom sun and moon
Are sparks, and short-lived, claims another right.

The noble soul by age grows lustier;
Her appetite and her digestion mend.
We must