The Love Poems of John Donne

By John Donne

Born in 1572 in London England, John Donne was an English Jacobean poet of exceptional skill, whose poetry was known for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor. While Donne was well educated and his poetic talents considerable he struggled for much of his life to provide for his family. Having published only two volumes during his lifetime, he was not a professional poet. Despite this his legacy on the world of poetry is a significant one. In this volume you will find a representative selection of his "love-poetry", a type of poetry popular in Donne's time. In total seventy-two passionate and erotic poems comprise this volume of "The Love Poems of John Donne".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781420936506

John Donne

John Donne was born in 1572 and, a Roman Catholic in his youth, took Anglican Orders in 1615 and was Dean of St. Paul’s from 1621 until his death. His poetry, though forgotten for a long period, is the finest example of the so-called ‘metaphysical’ style, learned, allusive and witty. It is both highly physical and highly spiritual, with no distinction in method between the sacred and secular poems.

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THE LOVES POEMS

OF

JOHN DONNE

A Digireads.com Book

Digireads.com Publishing

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3243-0

Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3650-6

This edition copyright © 2012

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CONTENTS

THE GOOD-MORROW

SONG: Go and catch a falling star

WOMAN'S CONSTANCY

THE UNDERTAKING

THE SUN RISING

THE INDIFFERENT

LOVE'S USURY

THE CANONIZATION

THE TRIPLE FOOL

LOVERS' INFINITENESS

SONG: Sweetest love, I do not go

THE LEGACY

A FEVER

AIR AND ANGELS

BREAK OF DAY

THE ANNIVERSARY

A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME, IN THE WINDOW

TWICKENHAM GARDEN

A VALEDICTION: OF THE BOOK

COMMUNITY

LOVE'S GROWTH

LOVE'S EXCHANGE

CONFINED LOVE

THE DREAM

A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING

LOVE'S ALCHEMY

THE FLEA

THE CURSE

THE MESSAGE

A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY,

WITCHCRAFT BY A PICTURE

THE BAIT

THE APPARITION

THE BROKEN HEART

A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING

THE ECSTACY

LOVE'S DEITY

LOVE'S DIET

THE WILL

THE FUNERAL

THE BLOSSOM

THE PRIMROSE, BEING AT MONTGOMERY CASTLE UPON THE HILL, ON WHICH IT IS SITUATE

THE RELIC

THE DAMP

THE DISSOLUTION

A JET RING SENT

NEGATIVE LOVE

THE PROHIBITION

THE EXPIRATION

THE COMPUTATION

THE PARADOX

FAREWELL TO LOVE

A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW

SONNET: THE TOKEN

SELF-LOVE

SONG: Stay, oh sweet, and do not rise

JEALOUSY

THE ANAGRAM

CHANGE

THE PERFUME

HIS PICTURE

ELEGY: Oh, let me not serve so, as those men serve

ELEGY: Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love

THE COMPARISON

THE AUTUMNAL

THE DREAM

THE BRACELET

HIS PARTING FROM HER

ON HIS MISTRESS

LOVE'S PROGRESS

TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED

LOVE'S WAR

THE GOOD-MORROW

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?

'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;

Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or thou and I

Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

SONG

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou beest born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet,

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

WOMAN'S CONSTANCY

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,

To-morrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?

Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?

Or say that now

We are not just those persons which we were?

Or that oaths made in reverential fear

Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?

Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,

So lovers' contracts, images of those,

Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?

Or, your own end to justify,

For having purposed change and falsehood, you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could

Dispute, and conquer, if I would;

Which I abstain to do,

For by to-morrow I may think so too.

THE UNDERTAKING

I have done one braver thing

Than all the Worthies did;

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now to impart

The skill of specular stone,

When he, which can have learned the art

To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,

Others (because no more

Such stuff to work upon, there is)

Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who color loves, and skin,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also do

Virtue in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the He and She;

And if this love, though placed so,

From profane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they do, deride;

Then you have done a braver thing

Than all the Worthies did;

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

THE SUN RISING

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight