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Overview
Considered by many critics the foremost English "metaphysical" poet, John Donne (1572–1631) earned renown for both sacred and secular verse, his love poems in the latter genre ranking among his most original and popular works. Brilliant and wide-ranging, Donne's verse is distinguished by its passion, insight, and inspired use of striking metaphors or "conceits." This volume contains a rich selection of the poet's best work, including, from the Songs and Sonnets: "The Good Morrow," "The Canonization," "The Relic," and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"; from the Elegies: "On His Mistress" and "To His Mistress Going to Bed"; a selection from the Holy Sonnets (including "Death Be Not Proud"); "Good Friday. 1613. Riding Westward," "Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness" and many more.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486153599 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 03/15/2012 |
| Series: | Dover Thrift Editions: Poetry |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 789 KB |
| Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Ilona Bell is a professor of English at Williams College. She has published widely on Renaissance literature and is the author of several books on John Donne.
Read an Excerpt
Selected Poems
By JOHN DONNE
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1993 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-15359-9
CHAPTER 1
The Good Morrow
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then?
But sucked 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 mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do 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 beest 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 findst 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 leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change, and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow, I may think so too.
The Undertaking
I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
It were but madness now t'impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learned the art
To cut it, can find none.
So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon, there is,)
Would love but as before.
But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.
If, as I have, you also do
Virtue attired in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too,
And forget the he and she;
And if this love, though placed so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride:
Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did;
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
The Sun Rising
Busy old fool, umuly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, all here in one bed lay
She is all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic; all wealth alchemy.
Thou sun art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
The Indifferent
I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.
Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do, as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear, that men are true, torment you?
Oh we are not, be not you so,
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travel thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?
Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, "Alas, some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, 'Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them, who are false to you.' "
The Canonization
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honor, or his Grace,
Or the Kings real, or his stamped face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So to one neutral thing both sexes fit,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love.
And thus invoke us: "You whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!"
The Triple Fool
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry;
But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,
If she would not deny?
Then as th'earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge seawater's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For, he tames it, that fetters it in verse.
But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain,
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when 'tis read,
Both are increased by such songs:
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.
Song
Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best,
To use myself in jest
Thus by feigned deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today,
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away,
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill,
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfill;
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
The Legacy
When I died last, and, dear, I die
As often as from thee I go,
Though it be but an hour ago,
And lovers' hours be full eternity,
I can remember yet, that I
Something did say, and something did bestow;
Though I be dead, which sent me, I should be
Mine own executor and legacy.
I heard me say, Tell her anon,
That myself (that is you, not I)
Did kill me, and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone,
But I alas could there find none,
When I had ripped me, and searched where hearts did lie;
It killed me again, that I who still was true,
In life, in my last will should cozen you.
Yet I found something like a heart,
But colors it, and corners had,
It was not good, it was not bad,
It was entire to none, and few had part.
As good as could be made by art
It seemed; and therefore for our losses sad,
I meant to send this heart instead of mine,
But oh, no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Selected Poems by JOHN DONNE. Copyright © 1993 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
SONGS AND SONNETSThe Good Morrow
"Song ["Go, and catch a falling star"]"
Woman's Constancy
The Undertaking
The Sun Rising
The Indifferent
The Canonization
The Triple Fool
"Song ["Sweetest love, I do not go"]"
The Legacy
A Fever
Air and Angels
Break of Day
The Anniversary
"A Valediction: of My Name, in the Window"
Twickenham Garden
A Valediction: of Weeping
The Flea
The Curse
"A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day"
Witchcraft by a Picture
The Bait
The Apparition
The Broken Heart
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
The Ecstasy
Love's Deity
The Funeral
The Blossom
The Relic
A Lecture upon the Shadow
EPIGRAMS
A Burnt Ship
Fall of a Wall
Cales and Guiana
An Obscure Winter
The Liar
ELEGIES
Elegy I: Jealousy
Elegy II: The Anagram
Elegy V: His Picture
Elegy IX: The Autumnal
Elegy XVI: On His Mistress
Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed
EPITHALAMIONS
"An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine Being Married on St. Valentines Day"
SATIRES
"Satire I ["Away thou fondling motley humorist"]"
"Satire III ["Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids"]"
VERSE LETTERS
To Mr. Christopher Brooke
The Storm
The Calm
"To Mr. Rowland Woodward ["Like one who in her third widowhood doth profess"]"
To the Countess of Bedford on New Year's Day
EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES
Elegy on the Lady Markham
DIVINE POEMS
La Corona
Holy Sonnets
I "["Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?"]"
II "["As due by many titles I resign"]"
III "["O might those sighs and tears return again"]"
IV "["O my black soul! now thou art summoned"]"
V "["I am a little world made cunningly"]"
VI "["This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint"]"
VII "["At the round earth's imagined corners, blow"]"
VIII "["If faithful souls be alike glorified"]"
IX "["If poisonous minerals, and if that tree"]"
X "["Death be not proud, though some have called thee"]"
XI "["Spit in my face you Jews, and pierce my side"]"
XII "["Why are we by all creatures waited on?"]"
XIII "["What if this present were the world's last night?"]"
XIV "["Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you"]"
XV "["Wilt thou love God, as he thee? then digest"]"
XVI "["Father, part of his double intrest"]"
XVII "["Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt"]"
XVIII "["Show me dear Christ, thy spouse, so bright and clear"]"
XIX "["Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one"]"
"Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward"
"A Hymn to Christ, at the Author's Last Going into Germany"
"Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness"
A Hymn to God the Father
Alphabetical List of Titles
Alphabetical List of First Lines