John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (21 page)

Seas into seas thrown, we suck in again;

Hearing hath deafed our sailors; and if they

Knew how to hear, there's none knows what to say.

Compared to these storms, death is but a qualm,

Hell somewhat lightsome, and the Bermuda calm.

Darkness, light's elder brother, his birth-right

Claims o'er this world, and to heaven hath chased light.

All things are one, and that one none can be,

Since all forms, uniform deformity

Doth cover, so that we, except God say

Another
Fiat,
shall have no more day.

So violent, yet long these furies be,

That though thine absence starve me, I wish not thee.

The Calm

Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage,

A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.

The fable is inverted, and far more

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 can wish, that my thoughts were,

Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,

The sea is now. And, as those 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 lanthorns; 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 the 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' jaws:

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 our brimstone bath,

But from the sea, into the ship we turn,

Like parboiled wretches, on the coals to burn.

Like Bajazet encaged, the shepherd's scoff,

Or like slack-sinewed Samson, his hair off,

Languish our ships. Now, as a myriad

Of ants, durst th' Emperor's loved snake invade,

The crawling galleys, sea-gaols, 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 pushed me first,

I lose my end: for here as well as I

A desperate may live, and a 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 Mr B. B.

Is not thy sacred hunger of science

Yet satisfied? Is not thy brain's rich hive

Fulfilled with honey which thou dost derive

From the arts' spirits and their quintessence?

Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw

From Cambridge thy old nurse, and, as the rest,

Here toughly chew, and sturdily digest

Th' immense vast volumes of our common law;

And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too,

Which is, that that which I should have begun

In my youth's morning, now late must be done;

And I as giddy travellers must do,

Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost

Light and strength, dark and tired must then ride post.

If thou unto thy Muse be married,

Embrace her ever, ever multiply,

Be far from me that strange adultery

To tempt thee and procure her widowhead.

My Muse (for I had one,) because I am cold,

Divorced herself: the cause being in me,

That I can take no new in bigamy,

Not my will only but power doth withhold.

Hence comes it, that these rhymes which never had

Mother, want matter, and they only have

A little form, the which their father gave;

They are profane, imperfect, oh, too bad

To be counted children of poetry

Except confirmed and bishoped by thee.

To Mr C. B.

Thy friend, whom thy deserts to thee enchain,

Urged by this inexcusable occasion,

Thee and the saint of his affection

Leaving behind, doth of both wants complain;

And let the love I bear to both sustain

No blot nor maim by this division,

Strong is this love which ties our hearts in one,

And strong that love pursued with amorous pain;

But though besides thyself I leave behind

Heaven's liberal, and earth's thrice-fairer sun,

Going to where stern winter aye doth won,

Yet, love's hot fires, which martyr my sad mind,

Do send forth scalding sighs, which have the art

To melt all ice, but that which walls her heart.

To Mr S. B.

O thou which to search out the secret parts

Of the India, or rather paradise

Of knowledge, hast with courage and advice

Lately launched into the vast sea of arts,

Disdain not in thy constant travailing

To do as other voyagers, and make

Some turns into less creeks, and wisely take

Fresh water at the Heliconian spring;

I sing not, siren like, to tempt; for I

Am harsh; nor as those schismatics with you,

Which draw all wits of good hope to their crew;

But seeing in you bright sparks of poetry,

I, though I brought no fuel, had desire

With these articulate blasts to blow the fire.

To Mr E. G.

Even as lame things thirst their perfection, so

The slimy rhymes bred in our vale below,

Bearing with them much of my love and heart,

Fly unto that Parnassus, where thou art.

There thou o'erseest London: here I have been

By staying in London too much overseen.

Now pleasure's dearth our city doth possess,

Our theatres are filled with emptiness;

As lank and thin is every street and way

As a woman delivered yesterday.

Nothing whereat to laugh my spleen espies

But bearbaitings or law exercise.

Therefore I'll leave it, and in the country strive

Pleasure, now fled from London, to retrieve.

Do thou so too: and fill not like a bee

Thy thighs with honey, but as plenteously

As Russian merchants, thyself's whole vessel load,

And then at winter retail it here abroad.

Bless us with Suffolk's sweets; and as that is

Thy garden, make thy hive and warehouse this.

To Mr I. L.

Blessed are your north parts, for all this long time

My sun is with you, cold and dark is our clime;

Heaven's sun, which stayed so long from us this year,

Stayed in your north (I think) for she was there,

And hither by kind nature drawn from thence,

Here rages, chafes and threatens pestilence;

Yet I, as long as she from hence doth stay,

Think this no south, no summer, nor no day.

With thee my kind and unkind heart is run,

There sacrifice it to that beauteous sun:

And since thou art in paradise and needst crave

No joy's addition, help thy friend to save.

So may thy pastures with their flowery feasts,

As suddenly as lard, fat thy lean beasts;

So may thy woods oft polled, yet ever wear

A green, and when thee list, a golden hair;

So may all thy sheep bring forth twins; and so

In chase and race may thy horse all outgo;

So may thy love and courage ne'er be cold;

Thy son ne'er ward; thy loved wife ne'er seem old;

But mayst thou wish great things, and them attain,

As thou tell'st her, and none but her my pain.

To Mr I. L.

Of that short roll of friends writ in my heart

Which with thy name begins, since their depart,

Whether in the English Provinces they be,

Or drink of Po, Sequan, or Danuby,

There 's none that sometimes greets us not, and yet

Your Trent is Lethe; that past, us you forget.

You do not duties of societies,

If from the embrace of a loved wife you rise,

View your fat beasts, stretched barns, and laboured fields,

Eat, play, ride, take all joys which all day yields,

And then again to your embracements go:

Some hours on us your friends, and some bestow

Upon your Muse, else both we shall repent,

I that my love, she that her gifts on you are spent.

To Mr R. W.

If, as mine is, thy life a slumber be,

Seem, when thou read'st these lines, to dream of me,

Never did Morpheus nor his brother wear

Shapes so like those shapes, whom they would appear,

As this my letter is like me, for it

Hath my name, words, hand, feet, heart, mind and wit;

It is my deed of gift of me to thee,

It is my will, myself the legacy.

So thy retirings I love, yea envy,

Bred in thee by a wise melancholy,

That I rejoice, that unto where thou art,

Though I stay here, I can thus send my heart,

As kindly as any enamoured patient

His picture to his absent love hath sent.

All news I think sooner reach thee than me;

Havens are heavens, and ships winged angels be,

The which both gospel, and stern threatenings bring;

Guiana's harvest is nipped in the spring,

I fear; and with us (methinks) Fate deals so

As with the Jews' guide God did; he did show

Him the rich land, but barred his entry in:

Oh, slowness is our punishment and sin.

Perchance, these Spanish business being done,

Which as the earth between the moon and sun

Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,

Our discontinued hopes we shall retrieve:

But if (as all th' all must) hopes smoke away,

Is not almighty virtue an India?

If men be worlds, there is in every one

Something to answer in some proportion

All the world's riches: and in good men, this

Virtue, our form's form and our soul's soul, is.

To Mr R. W.

Kindly I envy thy song's perfection

Built of all th' elements as our bodies are:

That little of earth that'is in it, is a fair

Delicious garden where all sweets are sown.

In it is cherishing fire which dries in me

Grief which did drown me: and half quenched by it

Are satiric fires which urged me to have writ

In scorn of all: for now I admire thee.

And as air doth fulfil the hollowness

Of rotten walls; so it mine emptiness,

Where tossed and moved it did beget this sound

Which as a lame echo of thine doth rebound.

Oh, I was dead; but since thy song new life did give,

I recreated even by thy creature live.

To Mr R. W.

Muse not that by thy mind thy body is led:

For by thy mind, my mind's distempered.

So thy care lives long, for I bearing part

It eats not only thine, by my swoll'n heart.

And when it gives us intermission

We take new hearts for it to feed upon.

But as a lay man's genius doth control

Body and mind; the Muse being the soul's soul

Of poets, that methinks should ease our anguish,

Although our bodies wither and minds languish.

Write then, that my griefs which thine got may be

Cured by thy charming sovereign melody.

To Mr R. W.

Zealously my Muse doth salute all thee

Inquiring of that mystic trinity

Whereof thou and all to whom heavens do infuse

Like fire, are made; thy body, mind, and Muse.

Dost thou recover sickness, or prevent?

Or is thy mind travailed with discontent?

Or art thou parted from the world and me,

In a good scorn of the world's vanity?

Or is thy devout Muse retired to sing

Upon her tender elegiac string?

Our minds part not, join then thy Muse with mine

For mine is barren thus divorced from thine.

To Mr Roland Woodward

Like one who in her third widowhood doth profess

Herself a nun, tied to retiredness,

So affects my Muse now, a chaste fallowness,

Since she to few, yet to too many hath shown

How love-song weeds, and satiric thorns are grown

Where seeds of better arts, were early sown.

Though to use, and love poetry, to me,

Betrothed to no one art, be no adultery;

Omissions of good, ill, as ill deeds be.