Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Laws of religion have at least the same,
Immortal maid, I might invoke thy name.
Could any saint provoke that appetite,
Thou here should'st make me a French convertite.
But thou would'st not; nor would'st thou be content
To take this for my second year's true rent,
Did this coin bear any other stamp than his,
That gave thee power to do, me to say this:
Since his will is, that to posterity

Thou should'st for life and death a pattern be,
And that the world should notice have of this,
The purpose and th' authority is his.
Thou art the proclamation; and I am

The trumpet, at whose voice the people came.

EPICEDES AND OBSEQUIES

UPON

THE DEATHS OF SUNDRY PERSONAGES.

AN ELEGY

ON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF THE INCOMPARABLE PRINCE
HENRY.

Look on me, Faith, and look to my faith, God;
For both my centres feel this period.
Of weight one centre, one of greatness is;
And reason is that centre, faith is this;
For into our reason flow, and there do end
All, that this natural world doth comprehend;
Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,
Shut in, for man, in one circumference:
But for th' enormous greatnesses, which are
So disproportion'd, and so angular,

As is God's essence, place, and providence,
Where, how, when, what souls do, departed hence;
These things (eccentric else) on faith do strike:
Yet neither all, nor upon all alike.
For reason, put to her best extension,

Almost meets faith, and makes both centres one.
And nothing ever came so near to this,
As contemplation of that prince we miss.

For all that faith might credit, mankind could,
Reason still seconded, that this prince would.
If then least moving of the centre make

For to confirm this just belief, that now
The last days came, we saw Heav'n did allow,
That, but from his aspect and exercise,
In peaceful times rumours of wars should arise.
But now this faith is heresy: we must
Still stay, and vex our great grandmother, Dust.
Oh, is God prodigal hath he spent his store
Of plagues on us; and only now, when more
Would ease us much, doth he grudge misery;
And will not let 's enjoy our curse, to die?
As for the Earth, thrown lowest down of all,
"T were an ambition to desire to fall;
So God, in our desire to die, doth know
Our plot for ease, in being wretched so:
Therefore we live, though such a life we have,
As but so many mandrakes on his grave.
What had his growth and generation done,
When, what we are, his putrefaction
Sustains in us, Earth, which griefs animate?
Nor hath our world now other soul than that.
And could grief get so high as Heav'n, that quire,
Forgetting this their new joy, would desire
(With grief to see him) he had stay'd below,
To rectify our errours they foreknow.

Is th' other centre, reason, faster then?
Where should we look for that, now we 're not men?
For if our reason be our connection

Of causes, now to us there can be none.
For, as if all the substances were spent,
'T were madness to inquire of accident;
So is 't to look for reason, he being gone,
The only subject reason wrought upon.
If fate have such a chain, whose divers links
Industrious man discerneth, as he thinks,
When miracle doth come, and so steal in
A new link, man knows not where to begin:
At a much deader fault must reason be,
Death having broke off such a link as he.
But now,
for us with busy proof to come,
That we 've no reason, would prove we had some;
So would just lamentations: therefore we
May safelier say, that we are dead, than he.
So, if our griefs we do not well declare,
We 've double excuse; he's not dead, we are.
Yet would not I die yet; for though I be
Too narrow to think him, as he is he,
(Our souls' best baiting and mid-period,
In her long journey of considering God)
Yet (no dishonour) I can reach him thus,
As he embrac'd the fires of love, with us.
Oh, may I (since I live) but see or hear,
That she-intelligence which mov'd this sphere,
I pardon Fate, my life; whoe'er thou be,

More, than if whole Hell belch'd, the world to shake, Which hast the noble conscience, thou art she:

What must this do, centres distracted so,

That we see not what to believe or know?
Was it not well believ'd till now, that he,
Whose reputation was an ecstasy,

On neighbour states, which knew not why to wake,
Till he discover'd what ways he would take;
For whom, what princes angled, when they try'd,
Met a torpedo, and were stupify'd;

And other's studies, how he would be bent;

Was his great father's greatest instrument,

And activ'st spirit, to convey and tie
This soul of peace unto Christianity?

Was it not well believ'd, that he would make

This general peace th' eternal overtake,

And that his times might have stretch'd out so far,

As to touch those of which they emblems are?

I conjure thee by all the charms he spoke,
By th' oaths, which only you two never broke,
By all the souls ye sigh'd, that if you see
These lines, you wish, I knew your history.
So much, as you two mutual Heav'ns were here,
I were an angel, singing what you were.

OBSEQUIES

ON

THE LORD HARRINGTON, &C.

ΤΟ

THE COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

MADAM,

I HAVE learned by those laws, wherein I am little conversant, that he which bestows any cost upon the dead, obliges him which is dead, but not his heir; I do not therefore send this paper to your ladyship, that you should thank me for it, or think that I thank you in it; your favours and benefits to me are so much above my merits, that they are even above my gratitude; if that were to be judged by words, which must express it. But, madam, since your noble brother's fortune being yours, the evidences also concerning it are yours: so his virtues being yours, the evidences concerning that belong also to you, of which by your acceptance this may be one piece; in which quality I humbly present it, and as a testimony how entirely your family possesseth

your ladyship's

most humble and thankful servant,

JOHN DONNE.

FAIR Soul, which wast not only as all souls be,
Then when thou wast infused, harmony,
But did'st continue so; and now dost bear
A part in God's great organ, this whole sphere;
If looking up to God, or down to us,
Thou find that any way is pervious

'Twixt Heav'n and Earth, and that men's actions do
Come to your knowledge and affections too,
See, and with joy, me to that good degree
Of goodness grown, that I can study thee;
And by these meditations refin'd,
Can unapparel and enlarge my mind,
And so can make by this soft ecstasy,
This place a map of Heav'n, myself of thee.
Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest;
Time's dead-low water, when all minds divest
To morrow's business, when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;
Now when the client, whose last hearing is
To morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,
(Who when he opes his eyes must shut them then
Again by death) although sad watch he keep,
Doth practise dying by a little sleep;

Thou at this midnight seest me, and as soon
As that Sun rises to me, midnight's noon;

All the world grows transparent, and I see Through all, both church and state, in seeing thee; And I discern by favour of this light

Myself, the hardest object of the sight.

God is the glass; as thou, when thou dost see
Him, who sees all, seest all concerning thee:
So, yet unglorified, I comprehend

All, in these mirrors of thy ways and end.

Though God be our true glass, through which we see
All, since the being of all things is he,

Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive
Things in proportion, fit by perspective,
Deeds of good men: for by their being here,
Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.
But where can I affirm or where arrest

My thoughts on his deeds? which shall I call best?
For fluid virtue cannot be look'd on,
Nor can endure a contemplation.
As bodies change, and as I do not wear
Those spirits, humours, blood, I did last year;
And as, if on a stream I fix mine eye,
That drop, which I look'd on, is presently
Push'd with more waters from my sight, and gone:
So in this sea of virtues, can no one
Be insisted on; virtues as rivers pass,
Yet still remains that virtuous man there was.
And as, if man feed on man's flesh, and so
Part of his body to another owe,
Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise,
Because God knows where every atom lies;
So if one knowledge were made of all those,
Who knew his minutes well, he might dispose
His virtues into names and ranks; but I
Should injure nature, virtue, and destiny,

Should I divide and discontinue so
Virtue, which did in one entireness grow.
For as he that should say, spirits are fram'd
Of all the purest parts that can be nam'd,
Honours not spirits half so much as he
Which says they have no parts, but simple be:
So is 't of virtue; for a point and one

Are much entirer than a million.

And had Fate meant t' have had his virtues told,
It would have let him live to have been old.
So then that virtue in season, and then this,
We might have seen, and said, that now he is
Witty, now wise, now temperate, now just:
In good short lives, virtues are fain to thrust,
And to be sure betimes to get a place,
When they would exercise, lack time, and space.
So was it in this person, forc'd to be,
For lack of time, his own epitome:
So to exhibit in few years as much,

[run,

As all the long-breath'd chroniclers can touch.
As when an angel down from Heav'n doth fly,
Our quick thought cannot keep him company;
We cannot think, now he is at the Sun,
Now through the Moon, now through the air doth
Yet when he 's come, we know he did repair
To all 'twixt Heav'n and Earth, Sun, Moon, and air;
And as this angel in an instant knows;
And yet we know this sudden knowledge grows
By quick amassing several forms of things,
Which he successively to order brings;
When they, whose slow-pac'd lame thoughts cannot
So fast as he, think that he doth not so;
Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell
On every syllable, nor stay to spell,
Yet without doubt he doth distinctly see,
And lay together every A and B ;

[go

So in short-liv'd good men is not understood
Each several virtue, but the compound good.
For they all virtue's paths in that pace tread,
As angels go, and know, and as men read.

O why should then these men, these lumps of balm,
Sent hither the world's tempest to becalm,
Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spread,
And to make us alive, themselves be dead?
0, soul! O, circle! why so quickly be

Thy ends, thy birth, and death clos'd up in thee?
Since one foot of thy compass still was plac'd
In Heav'n, the other might securely 've pac'd
In the most large extent through every path,
Which the whole world, or man, th' abridgment,

hath.

Thou know'st, that though the tropic circles have
(Yea, and those small ones which the poles engrave)
All the same roundness, evenness, and all
The endlessness of th' equinoctial;
Yet when we come to measure distances,
How here, how there, the Sun affected is;
When he doth faintly work, and when prevail;
Only great circles then can be our scale:
So though thy circle to thyself express
All tending to thy endless happiness;
And we by our good use of it may try

Both how to live weli (young) and how to die.
Yet since we must be old, and age endures
His torrid zone at court, and calentures
Of hot ambition, irreligion's ice,
Zeal's agues, and hydropic avarice,
(Infirmities, which need the scale of truth,
As well as lust and ignorance of youth ;)
Why didst thou not for these give medicines too,
And by thy doing tell us what to do?
Though as small pocket-clocks, whose every wheel
Doth each mis-motion and distemper feel;
Whose hands gets shaking palsies; and whose string
(His sinews) slackens; and whose soul, the spring,
Expires or languishes; and whose pulse, the flee,
Either beats not, or beats unevenly;

Whose voice, the bell, doth rattle or grow dumb,
Or idle, as men which to their last hour come;
If these clocks be not wound, or be wound still,
Or be not set, or set at every will;
So youth is easiest to destruction,
If then we follow all, or follow none.

Yet as in great clocks, which in steeples chime,
Plac'd to inform whole towns, t'employ their time,
And errour doth more harm, being general,
When small clock's faults only on th' wearer fall:
So work the faults of age, on which the eye
Of children, servants, or the state rely;

Why would'st not thou then, which hadst such a soul,

A clock so true, as might the Sun control,
And daily hadst from him, who gave it thee,
Instructions, such, as it could never be
Disorder'd, stay here, as a general
And great sun-dial, to have set us all?
Oh, why would'st thou be an instrument
To this unnatural course? or why consent
To this, not miracle, but prodigy,

That when the ebbs longer than flowings be,
Virtue, whose flood did with thy youth begin,
Should so much faster ebb out than flow in?
Though her flood were blown in by thy first breath,
All is at once sunk in the whirl-pool, death.
Which word I would not name, but that I see
Death, else a desert, grown a court by thee.

Now I am sure that if a man would have Good company, his entry is a grave. Methinks all cities now but ant-hills be, Where when the several labourers I see

For children, house, provision, taking pain, [grain:
They're all but ants, carrying eggs, straw, and
And church-yards are our cities, unto which
The most repair, that are in goodness rich;
There is the best concourse and confluence,
There are the holy suburbs, and from thence
Begins God's city, new Jerusalem,
Which doth extend her utmost gates to them:
At that gate then, triumphant soul, dost thou
Begin thy triumph. But since laws allow
That at the triumph-day the people may,
All that they will, 'gainst the triumpher say,
Let me here use that freedom, and express
My grief, though not to make thy triumph less.
By law to triumphs none admitted be,
Till they, as magis rates, get victory;
Though then to thy force all youth's foes did yield,
Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field,
To which thy rank in this state destin'd thee,
That there thy counsels might get victory,
And so in that capacity remove

All jealousies 'twixt prince and subject's love,
Thou could'st no title to this triumph have,
Thou didst intrude on Death, usurp a grave,
Then (though victoriously) thou hadst fought as yet
But with thine own affections, with the heat
Of youth's desires, and colds of ignorance,
But till thou should'st successfully advance
Thine arms 'gainst foreign enemies, which are
Both envy, and acclamations popular,
(For both these engines equally defeat,
Though by a divers mine, those which are great)
Till then thy war was but a civil war,
For which to triumph none admitted are;
No more are they, who, though with good success,
In a defensive war their power express.
Before men triumph, the dominion
Must be enlarg'd, and not preserv'd alone;
Why should'st thou then, whose battles were to win
Thyself from those straits Nature put thee in,
And to deliver up to God that state,
Of which he gave thee the vicariate,
(Which is thy soul and body) as entire
As he, who takes indentures, doth require;
But didst not stay, t' enlarge his kingdom too,
By making others, what thou didst, to do; [more
Why should'st thou triumph now, when Heav'n no
Hath got, by getting thee, than 't had before?
For Heav'n and thou, even when thou livedst here,
Of one another in possession were.

But this from triumph most disables thee,
That that place, which is conquered, must be
Left safe from present war, and likely doubt
Of imminent commotions to break out:
And hath he left us so? or can it be

This territory was no more than he?
No, we were all his charge; the diocese
Of every exemplar man the whole world is:
And he was joined in commission
With tutular angels, sent to every one.
But though this freedom to upbraid, and chide
Him who triumph'd, were lawful, it was ty'd
With this, that it might never reference have
Unto the senate, who this triumph gave;
Men might at Pompey jest, but they might not
At that authority, by which he got

Leave to triumph, before by age he might;
So though, triumphant soul, I dare to write
Mov'd with a reverential anger, thus
That thou so early would'st abandon us;
Yet I am far from daring to dispute
With that great sovereignty, whose absolute
Prerogative hath thus dispens'd with thee
'Gainst Nature's laws, which just impugners be
Of early triumph: and I (though with pain)
Lessen our loss, to magnify thy gain
Of triumph, when I say it was more fit

That all men should lack thee, than thou lack it.
Though then in our times be not suffered
That testimony of love unto the dead,

To die with them, and in their graves be hid,
As Saxon wives, and French soldarii did;
And though in no degree I can express
Grief in great Alexander's great excess,

Who at his friend's death made whole towns divest
Their walls and bulwarks, which became them best:
Do not, fair soul, this sacrifice refuse,
That in thy grave I do inter my Muse;
Which by my grief, great as thy worth, being cast
Behind hand, yet hath spoke, and spoke her last.

Of what small spots pure white complains! Alas,
How little poison cracks a crystal glass!
She sinn'd, but just enough to let us see
That God's word must be true, all sinners be.

So much did zeal her conscience rarify,
That extreme truth lack'd little of a lie;
Making omissions acts; laying the touch
Of sin on things, that sometime may be such.
As Moses' cherubins, whose natures do
Surpass all speed, by him are winged too:
So would her soul, already in Heav'n, seem then
To climb by tears, the common stairs of men.
How fit she was for God, I am content

To speak, that Death his vain haste may repent:
How fit for us, how even and how sweet,
How good in all her titles, and how meet
To have reform'd this forward heresy,
That women can no parts of friendship be;
How moral, how divine, shall not be told,
Lest they, that hear her virtues, think her old;
And lest we take Death's part, and make him glad
Of such a prey, and to his triumph add.

ON

THE LADY MARKHAM.

MAN is the world, and death the ocean,
To which God gives the lower parts of man.
This sea environs all, and though as yet
God hath set marks and bounds 'twixt us and it,
Yet doth it roar, and gnaw, and still pretend
To break our bank, whene'er it takes a friend :
Then our land-waters (tears of passion) vent;
Our waters then above our firmament,
(Tears, which our soul doth for our sins let fall)
Take all a brackish taste, and funeral.
And even those tears, which should wash sin, are sin.
We, after God, new drown our world again.
Nothing but man, of all envenom'd things,
Doth work upon itself with inborn stings.
Tears are false spectacles; we cannot see
Through passion's mist, what we are, or what she.
In her this sea of death hath made no breach;
But as the tide doth wash the slimy beach,
And leaves embroider'd works upon the sand,
So is her flesh refin'd by Death's cold hand.
As men of China, after an age's stay
Do take up porcelain, where they buried clay;
So at this grave, her limbec (which refines
The diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and mines,
Of which this flesh was) her soul shall inspire
Flesh of such stuff, as God, when his last fire
Annuls this world, to recompense, it shall
Make and name them th' elixir of this all.
They say, the sea, when it gains, loseth too;
If carnal Death (the younger brother) do
Usurp the body; our soul, which subject is
To th' elder Death by sin, is freed by this;
They perish both, when they attempt the just;
For graves our trophies are, and both Death's dust.
So, unobnoxious now, she hath buried both;
For none to death sins, that to sin is loath.
Nor do they die, which are not loath to die ;
So hath she this and that virginity.
Grace was in her extremely diligent,
That kept her from sin, yet made her repent.

ON

MISTRESS BOULSTRED.

DEATH, I recant, and say, unsaid by me
Whate'er hath slipt, that might diminish thee:
Spiritual treason, atheism 't is, to say,
That any can thy summons disobey.

Th' Earth's face is but thy table; there are set
Plants, cattle, men, dishes for Death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starv'd jaws :
Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste,
Eating the best first, well preserv'd to last:
Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not,
But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot.
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep,
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep;
Who (were Death dead) the rows of living sand
Might spunge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds', Heav'n's choristers, organic throats;
Which (if they did not die) might seem to be
A tenth rank in the Heavenly hierarchy.
O strong and long-liv'd Death, how cam'st thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou dy'st,
All the four monarchies, and antichrist.
How could I think thee nothing, that see now
In all this all, nothing else is, but thou?
Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee.
For we to live our bellows wear, and breath,
Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death.
And though thou beest (O mighty bird of prey)
So much reclaim'd by God, that thou must lay
All, that thou kill'st, at his feet; yet doth he
Reserve but few, and leaves the most for thee.
And of those few, now thou hast overthrown
One, whom thy blow makes not ours, nor thine own;
She was more stories high: hopeless to come
To her soul, thou hast offer'd at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court:
But thou hast both of captain miss'd and fort.

As houses fall not, though the kings remove;
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
Death gets 'twixt souls and bodies such a place
As sin insinuates 'twixt just men and grace;
Both work a separation, no divorce:

Her soul is gone to usher up her corse,
Which shall be almost another soul, for there
Bodies are purer than best souls are here.
Because in her her virtues did outgo

Her years, would'st thou, O emulous Death, do so,
And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost
Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?
What though thou found'st her proof 'gainst sins of
youth?

Oh, every age a diverse sin pursu’th.

Thou should'st have stay'd, and taken better hold;
Shortly ambitious; covetous, when old,
She might have prov'd; and such devotion
Might once have stray'd to superstition.
If all her virtues might have grown, yet might
Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight.
Had she persever'd just, there would have been
Some that would sin, mis-thinking she did sin.
Such as would call her friendship love, and feign
To sociableness a name profane;

Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that,
By wishing, though they never told her what.
Thus might'st thou 've slain more souls, had'st thou
not cross'd

Thyself, and, to triumph, thine army lost.
Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,
Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone:
But we may 'scape that sin, yet weep as much;
Our tears are due, because we are not such.
Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke; though no link lost.

ON HIS WIFE.

By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires, which thereof did ensue,
By our long striving hopes, by that remorse,
Which my words masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory

Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains, which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths, which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
I here unswear, and overswear them thus;
Thou shalt not love by means so dangerous.
Temper, O fair love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress, not my feigned page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind,
Thirst to come back; O, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar;
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd.
Fall ill or good, 't is madness to have prov'd
Dangers unurg'd: feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one in th' other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange

To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing womanly discovering grace.
Richly cloth'd apes, are call'd apes; and as soon
Eclips'd, as bright we call the Moon, the Moon,
Men of France, changeable chameleons,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Love's fuellers, and th' rightest company
Of players, which upon the world's stage be,
Will too too quickly know thee; and alas,
Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass

His warm land, well content to think thee page,
Will hunt thee with such lust and hideous rage,
As Lot's fair guests were vex'd. But none of these,
Nor spungy hydroptic Dutch, shall thee displease,
If thou stay here. O, stay here; for, for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,

To walk in expectation, till from thence
Our greatest king call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess;
Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse
Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight's startings, crying out, "Oh! oh!
Nurse, O my love is slain; I saw him go
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assail'd, taken, fight, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die."
Augure me better chance, except dread Jove
Think it enough for me t' have had thy love.

ON HIMSELF.

My fortune and my choice this custom break,
When we are speechless grown to make stones speak:
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
In my grave's inside seest what thou art now:
Yet thou 'rt not yet so good; till Death us lay
To ripe and mellow here we 're stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.
Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper'd is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcasses;
So we ourselves miraculously destroy,
Hele bodies with less miracle enjoy
Such privileges, enabled here to scale
Heav'n, when the trumpet's air shall them exhale.
Hear this, and mend thyself, and thou mend❜st me,
By making me, being dead, do good for thee;
And think me well compos'd, that I could now
A last-sick hour to syllables allow.

MADAM,

ELEGY.

THAT I might make your cabinet my tomb, And for my fame, which I love next my soul, Next to my soul provide the happiest room,

Admit to that place this last funeral scrowl. Others by wills give legacies, but I Dying of you do beg a legacy.

My fortune and my will this custom break,
When we are senseless grown, to make stones speak:
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
In my grave's inside see, what thou art now:

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »