Nativity. Poems. John Donne

or thrice had I lov’d thee,

      Before I knew thy face or name;

      So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame

      Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be;

      Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

      Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

      But since my soul, whose child love is,

      Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,

      More subtle than the parent is

      Love must not be, but take a body too;

      And therefore what thou wert, and who,

      I bid Love ask, and now

      That it assume thy body, I allow,

      And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

      Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,

      And so more steadily to have gone,

      With wares which would sink admiration,

      I saw I had love’s pinnace overfraught;

      Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon

      Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

      For, nor in nothing, nor in things

      Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;

      Then, as an angel, face, and wings

      Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,

      So thy love may be my love’s sphere;

      Just such disparity

      As is ’twixt air and angels’ purity,

      «Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be.

      An Anatomy of the World

      (excerpt)

      AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD

      Wherein,

      by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress

      Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay

      of this whole world is represented

      THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY

      When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,

      Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one

      (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless

      It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,

      And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,

      May lodge an inmate soul, but ’tis not his)

      When that queen ended here her progress time,

      And, as t’her standing house, to heaven did climb,

      Where loath to make the saints attend her long,

      She’s now a part both of the choir, and song;

      This world, in that great earthquake languished;

      For in a common bath of tears it bled,

      Which drew the strongest vital spirits out;

      But succour’d then with a perplexed doubt,

      Whether the world did lose, or gain in this,

      (Because since now no other way there is,

      But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,

      All must endeavour to be good as she)

      This great consumption to a fever turn’d,

      And so the world had fits; it joy’d, it mourn’d;

      And, as men think, that agues physic are,

      And th’ ague being spent, give over care,

      So thou, sick world, mistak’st thy self to be

      Well, when alas, thou’rt in a lethargy.

      Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then

      Thou might’st have better spar’d the sun, or man.

      That wound was deep, but ’tis more misery

      That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.

      «Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,

      But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.

      Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast

      Nothing but she, and her thou hast o’erpast.

      For, as a child kept from the font until

      A prince, expected long, come to fulfill

      The ceremonies, thou unnam’d had’st laid,

      Had not her coming, thee her palace made;

      Her name defin’d thee, gave thee form, and frame,

      And thou forget’st to celebrate thy name.

      Some months she hath been dead (but being dead,

      Measures of times are all determined)

      But long she’ath been away, long, long, yet none

      Offers to tell us who it is that’s gone.

      But as in states doubtful of future heirs,

      When sickness without remedy impairs

      The present prince, they’re loath it should be said,

      «The prince doth languish,» or «The prince is dead;»

      So mankind feeling now a general thaw,

      A strong example gone, equal to law,

      The cement which did faithfully compact

      And glue all virtues, now resolv’d, and slack’d,

      Thought it some blasphemy to say sh’was dead,

      Or that our weakness was discovered

      In that confession; therefore spoke no more

      Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.

      But though it be too late to succour thee,

      Sick world, yea dead, yea putrified, since she

      Thy’ intrinsic balm, and thy preservative,

      Can never be renew’d, thou never live,

      I (since no man can make thee live) will try,

      What we may gain by thy anatomy.

      Her death hath taught us dearly that thou art

      Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.

      Let no man say, the world itself being dead,

      «Tis labour lost to have discovered

      The world’s infirmities, since there is none

      Alive to study this dissection;

      For there’s a kind of world remaining still,

      Though she which did inanimate and fill

      The world, be gone, yet in this last long night,

      Her ghost doth walk; that is a glimmering light,

      A faint weak love of virtue, and of good,

      Reflects from her on them which understood

      Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,

      The twilight of her memory doth stay,

      Which, from the carcass of the old world free,

      Creates a new world, and new creatures be

      Produc’d. The matter and the stuff of this,

      Her virtue, and the form our practice is.

      And