The Greatest Poems of John Donne. John Donne

thy sphere.

      THE INDIFFERENT.

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      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 form'd, 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 ? O 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 fix'd 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 return'd 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're false to you.' "

      LOVE'S USURY.

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      FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now, I will allow, Usurious god of love, twenty to thee, When with my brown my gray hairs equal be. Till then, Love, let my body range, and let Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget, Resume my last year's relict ; think that yet We'd never met. Let me think any rival's letter mine, And at next nine Keep midnight's promise ; mistake by the way The maid, and tell the lady of that delay ; Only let me love none ; no, not the sport From country grass to confitures of court, Or city's quelque-choses; let not report My mind transport. This bargain's good ; if when I'm old, I be Inflamed by thee, If thine own honour, or my shame and pain, Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain. Do thy will then ; then subject and degree And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee. Spare me till then ; I'll bear it, though she be One that love me.

      THE CANONIZATION.

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      FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ; Or chide my palsy, or my gout ; My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ; With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ; Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his Honour, or his Grace ; Or the king's real, or his stamp'd 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 drown'd? Who says my tears have overflow'd 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's what you will, we are made such by love ; Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find th' 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 tomb or 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.

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      I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry ; But where's that wise man, that would not be I, If she would not deny ? Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea water'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 increasèd 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.