Sunday, April 20, 2008

The Sunne Rising

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

                        Busie olde foole, unruly Sunne,
                        Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
                        Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
                        Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
            Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
            Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time.

                        Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
                        Why shouldst thou thinke?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
                        If her eyes have not blinded thine
                        Looke, and tomorrow late, tell mee,
            Whether both the’India’s of spice and Myne
            Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

                        She’is all States, and all Princes, I,
                        Nothing else is.
Princes doe but play us, compar’d to this,
All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie,
                        Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee,
                        In that the world’s contracted thus;
            Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
            To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

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