XLVI.

S

THE MESSAGE.

JOHN DONNE, 1573-1631.

END home my long-strayed eyes to me,

Which, oh! too long have dwelt on thee;

But if there they have learnt such ill,

Such forced fashions

And false passions,

That they be

Made by thee

Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

Send home my harmless heart again,

Which no unworthy thought could stain;

But if it be taught by thine

To make jestings

Of protestings,

And break both

Word and oath,

Keep it, for then 'tis none of mine.

Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know and see thy lies,

And may laugh and joy when thou
Art in anguish,

And dost languish

For some one

That will none,

Or prove as false as thou dost now.

XLVII.

VALEDICTION, FORBIDDING MOURNING.

As

S virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go;
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
Now his breath goes, and some say, no;

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;

But trepidations of the spheres,

Though greater far, are innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love,

Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence; for that it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so far refined,

That ourselves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind,

Careless, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth if the other do.

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

And grows erect as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circles just,

And makes me end where I begun.

XLVIII.

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.

ILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,

WILT

Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in, a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine, as He shines now and heretofore:
And having done that, Thou hast done;

I fear no more.

XLIX.

WE

THE FUNERAL.

HOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm
Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm;

The mystery, the sign you must not touch,
For 'tis my outward soul,

Viceroy to that which, then to heaven being gone,

Will leave this to control

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
Through every part

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,

The hairs, which upward grew, and strength and art

Have from a better brain,

Can better do't: except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled, when they're condemned to die.

Whate'er she meant by 't, bury it with me!

For since I am