Free John Donne - Delphi Poets Series by John Donne

take.
And if Death should prove false, she fears him not;
Our Muses, to redeem her, she hath got.
That fatal night we last kiss’d, I thus pray’d,
 — Or rather, thus despair’d, I should have said —
Kisses, and yet despair!  The forbid tree
Did promise (and deceive) no more than she.
Like lambs, that see their teats, and must eat hay,
A food, whose taste hath made me pine away.
Dives, when thou saw’st bliss, and craved’st to touch
A drop of water, thy great pains were such.
Here grief wants a fresh wit, for mine being spent,
And my sighs weary, groans are all my rent.
Unable longer to endure the pain,
They break like thunder, and do bring down rain.
Thus till dry tear solder my eye, I weep;
And then, I dream, how you securely sleep,
And in your dreams do laugh at me.   I hate,
And pray Love all may; he pities my state,
But says, I therein no revenge shall find;
The sun would shine, though all the world were blind.
Yet, to try my hate, Love show’d me your tear;
And I had died, had not your smile been there.
Your frown undoes me; your smile is my wealth;
And as you please to look, I have my health.
Methought, Love pitying me, when he saw this,
Gave me your hands, the backs and palms to kiss.
That cured me not, but to bear pain gave strength;
And what is lost in force, is took in length.
I call’d on Love again, who fear’d you so,
That his compassion still proved greater woe;
For, then I dream’d I was in bed with you,
But durst not feel, for fear it should not be true.
This merits not your anger, had it been;
The queen of chastity was naked seen;
And in bed not to feel, the pain I took,
Was more than for Actæon not to look;
And that breast which lay ope, I did not know,
But for the clearness, from a lump of snow;
Nor that sweet teat which on the top it bore
From the rose-bud which for my sake you wore.
These griefs to issue forth, by verse I prove;
Or turn their course by travel and new love.
All would not do; the best at last I tried;
Unable longer to hold out, I died.
And then I found I lost life, death by flying;
Who hundreds live, are but so long in dying.
Charon did let me pass; I’ll him requite.
To mark the groves or shades wrongs my delight;
I’ll speak but of those ghosts I found alone,
Those thousand ghosts, whereof myself made one,
All images of thee; I asked them why?
The judge told me, all they for thee did die,
And therefore had for their Elysian bliss,
In one another their own loves to kiss.
O here I miss’d not blissh, but being dead;
For lo! I dreamt, I dreamt, and waking said,
“ Heaven, if who are in thee there must dwell,
How is’t I now was there, and now I fell?”

ELEGY XIII.
    HIS PARTING FROM HER.
    SINCE she must go, and I must mourn, come night,
Environ me with darkness, whilst I write;
Shadow that hell unto me, which alone
I am to suffer when my love is gone.
Alas! the darkest magic cannot do it,
Thou and great hell, to boot, are shadows to it.
Should Cynthia quit thee, Venus, and each star,
It would not form one thought dark as mine are.
I could lend them obscureness now, and say
Out of my self, there should be no more day.
Such is already my self-want of sight,
Did not the fire within me force a light.
O Love, that fire and darkness should be mix’d,
Or to thy triumphs such strange torments fix’d!
Is it because thou thyself art blind, that we,
Thy martyrs, must no more each other see?
Or takest thou pride to break us on the wheel,
And view old Chaos in the pains we feel?
Or have we left undone some mutual rite,
That thus with parting thou seek’st us to spite?
No, no.  The fault is mine, impute it to me,
Or rather to conspiring destiny,
Which, since I loved in jest before, decreed
That I should suffer, when I loved indeed;
And therefore, sooner now than I can say,
I saw the golden fruit, ‘tis rapt away;
Or as I’d watch’d one drop in the vast stream,
And I left wealthy only in a dream.
Yet, Love, thou’rt blinder than myself in this,
To vex my dove-like friend