John Donne - Delphi Poets Series by John Donne Read Free Book Online

know,
Let him teach me that nothing. This
As yet my ease and comfort is,
Though I speed not, I cannot miss.

THE PROHIBITION.
           TAKE heed of loving me;
At least remember, I forbade it thee;
Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste
Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears,
By being to thee then what to me thou wast;
But so great joy our life at once outwears.
Then, lest thy love by my death frustrate be,
If thou love me, take heed of loving me.
           Take heed of hating me,
Or too much triumph in the victory;
Not that I shall be mine own officer,
And hate with hate again retaliate;
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror,
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate.
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.
           Yet love and hate me too;
So these extremes shall ne’er their office do;
Love me, that I may die the gentler way;
Hate me, because thy love’s too great for me;
Or let these two, themselves, not me, decay;
So shall I live thy stage, not triumph be.
Lest thou thy love and hate, and me undo,
O let me live, yet love and hate me too.

THE EXPIRATION.
    SO, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
    Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away;
Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,
    And let ourselves benight our happiest day.
We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe
    Any so cheap a death as saying, “Go.”
    Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
    Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
Or, if it have, let my word work on me,
    And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late, to kill me so,
    Being double dead, going, and bidding, “Go.”

THE COMPUTATION.
    FOR my first twenty years, since yesterday,
    I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away;
For forty more I fed on favours past,
    And forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last;
Tears drown’d one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
    A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;
    Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

THE PARADOX.
    NO lover saith, I love, nor any other
       Can judge a perfect lover;
He thinks that else none can or will agree,
       That any loves but he;
I cannot say I loved, for who can say
       He was kill’d yesterday.
Love with excess of heat, more young than old,
       Death kills with too much cold;
We die but once, and who loved last did die,
       He that saith, twice, doth lie;
For though he seem to move, and stir a while,
       It doth the sense beguile.
Such life is like the light which bideth yet
       When the life’s light is set,
Or like the heat which fire in solid matter
       Leaves behind, two hours after.
Once I loved and died; and am now become
       Mine epitaph and tomb;
Here dead men speak their last, and so do I;
       Love-slain, lo! here I die.

SOUL’S JOY, NOW I AM GONE.
    SOUL’S joy, now I am gone,
    And you alone,
    — Which cannot be,
Since I must leave myself with thee,
  And carry thee with me —
  Yet when unto our eyes
    Absence denies
    Each other’s sight,
And makes to us a constant night,
    When others change to light;
     O give no way to grief,
    But let belief
        Of mutual love
    This wonder to the vulgar prove,
        Our bodies, not we move.
    Let not thy wit beweep
    Words but sense deep;
    For when we miss
By distance our hope’s joining bliss,
  Even then our souls shall kiss;
  Fools have no means to meet,
    But by their feet;
    Why should our clay
Over our spirits so much sway,
    To tie us to that way?
     O give no way to grief, &c.

FAREWELL TO LOVE.
          WHILST yet to prove
I thought