John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (8 page)

ELEGY V.

HIS PICTURE.

HERE take my picture; though I bid farewell,
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
‘Tis like me now, but I dead, ‘twill be more,
When we are shadows both, than ‘twas before.
When weatherbeaten I come back; my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s harsh sudden hoariness o’erspread,
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,
So foul and coarse, as, O! I may seem then,
This shall say what I was; and thou shalt say,
“ Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk, which in love’s childish state
Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to weak tastes seems tough.”

ELEGY VI.

O, LET ME NOT SERVE SO, AS THOSE MEN SERVE

O, LET me not serve so, as those men serve,
Whom honour’s smokes at once fatten and starve,
Poorly enrich’d with great men’s words or looks;
Nor so write my name in thy loving books
As those idolatrous flatterers, which still
Their princes’ style with many realms fulfil,
Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway.
Such services I offer as shall pay
Themselves; I hate dead names. O, then let me
Favourite in ordinary, or no favourite be.
When my soul was in her own body sheathed,
Nor yet by oaths betroth’d, nor kisses breathed
Into my purgatory, faithless thee,
Thy heart seemed wax, and steel thy constancy.
So, careless flowers strew’d on the water’s face
The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace,
Yet drown them; so the taper’s beamy eye
Amorously twinkling beckons the giddy fly,
Yet burns his wings; and such the devil is,
Scarce visiting them who are entirely his.
When I behold a stream, which from the spring
Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring,
Or in a speechless slumber, calmly ride
Her wedded channel’s bosom, and there chide,
And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough
Do but stoop down to kiss her upmost brow;
Yet, if her often gnawing kisses win
The traitorous banks to gape, and let her in,
She rusheth violently, and doth divorce
Her from her native and her long-kept course,
And roars, and braves it, and in gallant scorn,
In flattering eddies promising return,
She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry;
Then say I; “That is she, and this am I.”
Yet let not thy deep bitterness beget
Careless despair in me, for that will whet
My mind to scorn; and O, love dull’d with pain
Was ne’er so wise, nor well arm’d, as disdain.
Then with new eyes I shall survey thee, and spy
Death in thy cheeks, and darkness in thine eye,
Though hope bred faith and love; thus taught, I shall,
As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall;
My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly
I will renounce thy dalliance; and when I
Am the recusant, in that resolute state
What hurts it me to be excommunicate?

ELEGY VII.

NATURE’S LAY IDIOT, I TAUGHT THEE TO LOVE

NATURE’S lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove
Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand
The mystic language of the eye nor hand;
Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
Of sighs, and say, “This lies, this sounds despair”;
Nor by th’ eye’s water cast a malady
Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
I had not taught thee then the alphabet
Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set
And bound up, might with speechless secrecy
Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.
Remember since all thy words used to be
To every suitor, “Ay, if my friends agree;”
Since household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,
Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach;
And since an hour’s discourse could scarce have made
One answer in thee, and that ill array’d
In broken proverbs, and torn sentences.
Thou art not by so many duties his —
That from th’ world’s common having sever’d thee,
Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see —
As mine; who have with amorous delicacies
Refined thee into a blissful paradise.
Thy graces and good works my creatures be;
I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee;
Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas!
Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?
Chafe wax for other’s seals? break a colt’s force,
And leave him then, being made a ready horse?

ELEGY VIII.

THE COMPARISON.

AS the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed musk cat’s pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th’ early east,
Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast;
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl carcanets.
Rank sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles,
Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,
Or like the scum, which, by need’s lawless law
Enforced, Sanserra’s starvèd men did draw
From parboil’d shoes and boots, and all the rest
Which were with any sovereign fatness blest;
And like vile lying stones in saffron’d tin,
Or warts, or wheals, it hangs upon her skin.
Round as the world’s her head, on every side,
Like to the fatal ball which fell on Ide;
Or that whereof God had such jealousy,
As for the ravishing thereof we die.
Thy head is like a rough-hewn statue of jet,
Where marks for eyes, nose, mouth, are yet scarce set;
Like the first chaos, or flat seeming face
Of Cynthia, when th’ earth’s shadows her embrace.
Like Proserpine’s white beauty-keeping chest,
Or Jove’s best fortune’s urn, is her fair breast.
Thine’s like worm-eaten trunks, clothed in seal’s skin,
Or grave, that’s dust without, and stink within.
And like that slender stalk, at whose end stands
The woodbine quivering, are her arms and hands.
Like rough-bark’d elm-boughs, or the russet skin
Of men late scourged for madness, or for sin,
Like sun-parch’d quarters on the city gate,
Such is thy tann’d skin’s lamentable state;
And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand
The short swollen fingers of thy gouty hand.
Then like the chemic’s masculine equal fire,
Which in the limbec’s warm womb doth inspire
Into th’ earth’s worthless dirt a soul of gold,
Such cherishing heat her best loved part doth hold.
Thine’s like the dread mouth of a fired gun,
Or like hot liquid metals newly run
Into clay moulds, or like to that Ætna,
Where round about the grass is burnt away.
Are not your kisses then as filthy, and more,
As a worm sucking an envenom’d sore?
Doth not thy fearful hand in feeling quake,
As one which gathering flowers still fears a snake?
Is not your last act harsh and violent,
As when a plough a stony ground doth rent?
So kiss good turtles, so devoutly nice
Are priests in handling reverent sacrifice,
And such in searching wounds the surgeon is,
As we, when we embrace, or touch, or kiss.
Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus,
She and comparisons are odious.

ELEGY IX.

THE AUTUMNAL.

NO spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face;
Young beauties force our love, and that’s a rape;
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.
If ‘twere a shame to love, here ‘twere no shame;
Affections here take reverence’s name.
Were her first years the Golden Age? that’s true,
But now they’re gold oft tried, and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time;
This is her tolerable tropic clime.
Fair eyes; who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.
Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,
They were Love’s graves, for else he is nowhere.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit,
Vow’d to this trench, like an anachorite,
And here, till hers, which must be his death, come,
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he; though he sojourn everywhere,
In progress, yet his standing house is here;
Here, where still evening is, not noon, nor night;
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at revels, you at council, sit.
This is love’s timber; youth his underwood;
There he, as wine in June, enrages blood;
Which then comes seasonablest, when our taste
And appetite to other things is past.
Xerxes’ strange Lydian love, the platane tree,
Was loved for age, none being so large as she;
Or else because, being young, nature did bless
Her youth with age’s glory, barrenness.
If we love things long sought, age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter faces, whose skin’s slack,
Lank as an unthrift’s purse, but a soul’s sack;
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here’s shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out, than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,
To vex their souls at resurrection;
Name not these living death-heads unto me,
For these, not ancient, but antique be.
I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.
Since such love’s motion natural is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill,
Not panting after growing beauties; so
I shall ebb out with them who homeward go.

ELEGY X.

THE DREAM.

IMAGE of her whom I love, more than she,
    Whose fair impression in my faithful heart
Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,
    As kings do coins, to which their stamps impart
The value; go, and take my heart from hence,
    Which now is grown too great and good for me.
Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense
    Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see.
When you are gone, and reason gone with you,
    Then fantasy is queen and soul, and all;
She can present joys meaner than you do,
    Convenient, and more proportional.
So, if I dream I have you, I have you,
    For all our joys are but fantastical;
And so I ‘scape the pain, for pain is true;
    And sleep, which locks up sense, doth lock out all.
After a such fruition I shall wake,
    And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;
And shall to love more thankful sonnets make,
    Than if more honour, tears, and pains were spent.
But, dearest heart and dearer image, stay;
    Alas! true joys at best are dream enough;
Though you stay here, you pass too fast away,
    For even at first life’s taper is a snuff.
Fill’d with her love, may I be rather grown
    Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.

ELEGY XI.

THE BRACELET.

UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS’ CHAIN, FOR
WHICH HE MADE SATISFACTION.

NOT that in colour it was like thy hair,
For armlets of that thou mayst let me wear;
Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kiss’d,
For so it had that good, which oft I miss’d;
Nor for that silly old morality,
That, as these links were knit, our love should be,
Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost;
Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost.
O, shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet
No leaven of vile solder did admit;
Nor yet by any way have stray’d or gone
From the first state of their creation;
Angels, which heaven commanded to provide
All things to me, and be my faithful guide;
To gain new friends, to appease great enemies;
To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise;
Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe
Sentence, dread judge, my sin’s great burden bear?
Shall they be damn’d, and in the furnace thrown,
And punish’d for offenses not their own?
They save not me, they do not ease my pains,
When in that hell they’re burnt and tied in chains.
Were they but crowns of France, I carèd not,
For most of these their country’s natural rot,
I think, possesseth; they come here to us
So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous.
And howsoe’er French kings most Christian be,
Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly.
Or were they Spanish stamps, still travelling,
That are become as Catholic as their king;
These unlick’d bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets,
That — more than cannon shot — avails or lets;
Which, negligently left unrounded, look
Like many-angled figures in the book
Of some great conjurer that would enforce
Nature, so these do justice, from her course;
Which, as the soul quickens head, feet and heart,
As streams, like veins, run through th’ earth’s every part,
Visit all countries, and have slily made
Gorgeous France, ruin’d, ragged and decay’d,
Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day,
And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia.
Or were it such gold as that wherewithal
Almighty chemics, from each mineral
Having by subtle fire a soul out-pull’d,
Are dirtily and desperately gull’d;
I would not spit to quench the fire they’re in,
For they are guilty of much heinous sin.
But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall
I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all?
Much hope which they would nourish will be dead.
Much of my able youth, and lustihead
Will vanish; if thou love, let them alone,
For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;
And be content that some loud squeaking crier,
Well-pleas’d with one lean threadbare groat, for hire,
May like a devil roar through every street,
And gall the finder’s conscience, if he meet.
Or let me creep to some dread conjurer,
That with fantastic schemes fills full much paper;
Which hath divided heaven in tenements,
And with whores, thieves, and murderers stuff’d his rents
So full, that though he pass them all in sin,
He leaves himself no room to enter in.
But if, when all his art and time is spent,
He say ‘twill ne’er be found; yet be content;
Receive from him that doom ungrudgingly,
Because he is the mouth of destiny.
Thou say’st, alas! the gold doth still remain,
Though it be changed, and put into a chain.
So in the first fallen angels resteth still
Wisdom and knowledge, but ‘tis turn’d to ill;
As these should do good works, and should provide
Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride.
And they are still bad angels; mine are none;
For form gives being, and their form is gone.
Pity these angels yet; their dignities
Pass Virtues, Powers, and Principalities.
But thou art resolute; thy will be done;
Yet with such anguish, as her only son
The mother in the hungry grave doth lay,
Unto the fire these martyrs I betray.
Good souls — for you give life to everything —
Good angels — for good messages you bring —
Destined you might have been to such an one,
As would have loved and worshipp’d you alone;
One that would suffer hunger, nakedness,
Yea death, ere he would make your number less;
But, I am guilty of your sad decay;
May your few fellows longer with me stay.
But O! thou wretched finder whom I hate
So, that I almost pity thy estate,
Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,
May my most heavy curse upon thee fall.
Here fetter’d, manacled, and hang’d in chains,
First mayst thou be; then chain’d to hellish pains;
Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray
Thy country, and fail both of it and thy pay.
May the next thing thou stoop’st to reach, contain
Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain;
Or libels, or some interdicted thing,
Which negligently kept thy ruin bring.
Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee
Itching desire, and no ability.
May all the evils that gold ever wrought;
All mischief that all devils ever thought;
Want after plenty, poor and gouty age,
The plagues of travellers, love, marriage
Afflict thee, and at thy life’s last moment,
May thy swollen sins themselves to thee present.
    But, I forgive; repent thee, honest man!
Gold is restorative; restore it then:
But if from it thou be’st loth to depart,
Because ‘tis cordial, would ‘twere at thy heart.