400 years ago today, a Christmas sermon by John Donne

 Found on Alan Jacobs' blog:

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From a sermon preached by John Donne on the evening of Christmas Day at St. Paul’s in 1624:

    God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their season: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; In paradise the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is always Autumn, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask panem quotidianam, our daily bread, and God never says you should have come yesterday, he never says you must again tomorrow, but today if you will hear his voice, today he will hear you. If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thou Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

Holy Sonnet XI

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

Spit in my face you Jewes, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoffe, scourge, and crucifie mee,
For I have sinn’d, and sinn’d, and onely hee,
Who could do no iniquitie, hath dyed:
But by my death can not be satisfied
My sinnes, which passe the Jewes impiety:
They kill’d once an inglorious man, but I
Crucifie him daily, being now glorified;
Oh let mee then, his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment.
And Jacob came cloth’d in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainfull intent:
God cloth’d himselfe in vile mans flesh, that so
Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe.

La Corona: Ascention

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

7.        Salute the last, and everlasting day.
           Joy at the uprising of this Sunne, and Sonne,
           Yee whose just teares, or tribulation
           Have purely washt, or burnt your drossie clay;
           Behold the Highest, parting hence away,
           Lightens the darke clouds, which hee treads upon,
           Nor doth hee by ascending, show alone,
           But first hee, and hee first enters the way.
           O strong Ramme, which hast batter’d heaven for mee,
           Mild lambe, which with thy blood, hast mark’d the path;
           Bright torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see,
           Oh, with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath,
           And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,
           Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

La Corona: Resurrection

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

6.        Moyst with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule,
           Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
           Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) bee
           Freed by that drop, from being starv’d, hard, or foule
           And life, by this death abled, shall controule
           Death, whom thy death slue; nor shall to mee
           Feare of first or last death, bring miserie,
           If in thy little booke my name thou enroule,
           Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
           But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
           Nor can by other meanes be glorified.
           May then sinnes sleep, and deaths soone from me passe,
           That wak’t from both, I againe risen may
           Salute the last, and everlasting day.

La Corona: Crucifying

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

5.       By miracles exceeding power of man,
           Hee faith in some, envie in some begat,
           For, what weake spirits admire, ambitious, hate;
           In both affections many to him ran,
           But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
           Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,
           Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate,
           Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to’a span,
           Nay to an inch. Loe, where condemned hee
           Beares his owne crosse, with paine, yet by and by
           When it beares him, he must beare more and die;
           Now thou art lifted up, draw mee to thee,
           And at thy death giving such liberall dole,
           Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule.

La Corona: Temple

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

4.       With his kind mother who partakes thy woe,
          Joseph turne back; see where your child doth sit,
          Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
          Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow;
          The Word but lately could not speake, and loe
          It sodenly speakes wonders, whence comes it,
          That all which was, and all which should be writ,
          A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?
          His Godhead was not soule to his manhood,
          Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse,
          But as for one which hath a long taske, ’tis good,
          With the Sunne to beginne his businesse,
          He in his ages morning thus began
          By miracles exceeding power of man.

La Corona: Nativitie

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

3.       Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe,
          Now leaves his welbelov’d imprisonment,
          There he hath made himselfe to his intent
          Weake enough, now into our world to come;
          But Oh, for thee, for him, hath the’ Inne no roome?
          Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,
          Starres, and wisemen will travell to prevent
          Th’effect of Herods jealous generall doome;
          Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he
          Which fils all place, yet none holds him, doth lye?
          Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
          That would have need to be pittied by thee?
          Kisse him, and with him into Egypt goe,
          With his kinde mother, who partakes thy woe.

La Corona: Annunciation

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

2.       Salvation to all that will is nigh,
          That All, which alwayes is All every where,
          Which cannot sinne, and yet all sinnes must beare,
          Which cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,
          Loe, faithfull Virgin, yeelds himselfe to lye
          In prison, in they wombe; and though he there
          Can take no sinne, nor thou give, yet he’will weare
          Taken frmo thence, flesh, which deaths force may trie.
          Ere by the spheares time was created, thou
          Wast in h is minde, who is thy Sonne, and Brother,
          Whom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now
          Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother,
          Thou’hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,
          Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe.

La Corona

~ John Donne (1572-1631)
A series of seven sonnets

1.       Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
          Weav’d in my low devout melancholie,
          Thou which of good, hast, yea art treasury,
          All changing unchang’d Antient of dayes,
          But doe not, with a vile crowne of fraile bayes,
          Reward my muses white sincerity,
          But what thy thorny crowne gain’d, that give mee,
          A crowne of Glory, which doth flower alwayes;
          The ends crowne our workes, but thou crown’st our ends,
          For, at our end begins our endlesse rest,
          The first last end, now zealously possest,
          With a strong sober thirst, my soule attends.
          ’Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
          Salvation to all that will is nigh.

Happy Ascension Day!

Here’s something by John Donne (1572-1631).

                        Ascention.

        Salute the last and everlasting day,
        Joy at the uprising of the Sunne, and Sonne,
        Yee whose just teares, or tribulation
        Have purely washt, or burnt your drossie clay;
        Behold the Highest, parting hence away,
        Lightens the darke clouds, which hee treads upon,
        Nor doth hee by ascending, show alone,
        But first hee, and hee first enters the way.
        O strong Ramme, which hast batter’d heaven for mee,
        Mild lambe, which with thy blood, hast mark’d the path;
        Bright torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see,
        Oh, with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath,
        And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,
        Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

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This poem is the last in a cycle of seven sonnets on the life of Christ. In each sonnet, the last line is the first line of the next in the cycle, so in this one, the last line, “Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise” is the first line of the first sonnet in the cycle. I’ll try to remember to post all seven of them over the course of seven days next April for National Poetry Month.

A Valediction forbidding mourning.

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

As virtuous men passe mildly away,
    And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
    The breath goes now, and some say, no;

So let us melt, and make no noise,
    No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T’were prophanation of our joyes
    To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harmes and feares,
    Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the speares,
    Though greater farre, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love
    (Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
    Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refin’d,
    That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
    Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,
    Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
    Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so
    As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth, if th’ other doe.

And though it in the center sit,
    Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
    And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
    Like th’ other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy firmnes drawes my circle just,
    And makes me end, where I begunne.

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Written late in 1611, this is a companion piece to the second Song I posted on Wednesday, also written for his wife before he left on the two-month-long journey. The calm rhythm and regular rhymes give it a relatively firm structure that reinforces its message of assurance.

In The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, C.S. Lewis provides very useful information that helped me understand some of the imagery – particularly that passage about “dull sublunary lovers” in stanza four. The whole explanation would be too long, so to be brief, Donne is saying that the love between him and his wife is not just physical, “eyes, lips, and hands,” but transcends the realm of the senses into the spiritual, so physical separation can’t really separate them.

Then in stanza six he uses gold, which symbolizes perfection, as a picture of their relationship. The footnote in my Everyman edition of John Donne: The Complete Poems in English, helpfully informs me that the medieval symbol for gold was a circle with a dot in the middle. Then in the very next stanza, Donne compares their love to the two legs of a compass – the kind you draw a circle with. Anne is the “fixt foot” which doesn’t go anywhere, and he is the pencil, which, because of her fixedness, draws a perfect circle around her – their love is like gold.

After his release from prison, John and Anne Donne lived with a cousin of hers until the cousin’s death in 1606. They rented a house for a few years and then another friend, Sir Robert Drewry, asked them to move into his large house in London. They were terribly grateful for his help because they still had very little to live on, and their family was increasing – a new baby nearly every year.

Then in 1611, Sir Robert decided to go to Paris with the Ambassador to France, and wanted Donne to accompany him. Anne was expecting their eighth baby at the time, and though they’d been separated before, this time she felt very uneasy about it, “saying, ‘Her divining soul boded her some ill in his absence;’ and therefore desired him not to leave her.” Donne would have stayed with her, but Sir Robert pressed him, and Donne told his wife that he felt he owed everything to Sir Robert on account of his charity to them. She finally did, “with an unwilling-willingness, give a faint consent to the journey.”

The trip to Paris took twelve days, and two days later, while he was alone one afternoon, Donne had a vision of Anne – she was walking up and down the room with her hair streaming, carrying a dead child in her arms. Twice he saw her this way, and he was so visibly upset when Sir Robert returned that he had to give an explanation. After hearing the story, Sir Robert said that he must have dozed off and dreamed it, but Donne was unconvinced. The next morning, he was still so bothered by the vision that Sir Robert sent a servant back home to get news. Twelve days later, the servant returned to say that Mrs Donne had had a long and difficult labor and that her child was delivered stillborn.

It had happened on the day, and about the same hour, that Donne had had the vision of her and the child.

Walton compares John and Anne Donne to two lute strings, tuned to the same note. Even though they are separated, when one is struck, the other will resonate.

---

This is part five in a series begun last Monday. Be sure to read it all, and when thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more.
:-)

The Sunne Rising

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

            Busie old 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 school boyes, and sowre prentices,
    Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
    Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, months, 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 to morrow 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 worlds’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 everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

[This is the fourth in a series on John Donne begun on Monday.]

This is my favorite of favorites. I almost listed it in the number 1 position in my list of ten favorites, but Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse is about my favorite person in the world, Alfred the Great, and it's a great work itself, so it got first place.

This is what I love best about Donne -- no commonplace metaphors for him, comparing his love to a flower or something trite like that. No sir, she's India with its spices and the West Indies with their gold mines, and more.

I said before that I don't like to assume that all his poems are biographical, but there might be a clue in this one: "Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride." Donne married in 1601 during Elizabeth's reign -- James I became king a year and a half later, and I think this poem is celebrating the marriage bed.

More than that, I think it's a metonymy, celebrating marriage itself, and Donne was very happily married: "compar’d to this, All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie." That's another clue, by the way -- but more on that later.

Mr Walton tells us that Donne had inherited £3000 when his father died many years earlier. A year or so after leaving his law studies he decided to travel in Europe and, so in 1596, as part of the war with Spain, he joined the victorious expedition to Cadiz, which was led by the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh among others. He also took part in the failed expedition of 1597 to the Azores.

Walton says that Donne spent some years travelling in Europe, including Italy, and meant to go to the Holy Land but the difficulties of travel and getting money forwarded made the pilgrimage impossible, something he always regretted. By 1598 he had become very familiar with "those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned [to England] perfect in their languages."

The same year he was noticed by Sir Thomas Egerton who was Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord Chancellor of England. He recognized Donne's wealth of talents and took him as chief secretary, intending the position to lead Donne to other greater service to the State. Sir Thomas considered Donne a friend and "did always use him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table, to which he esteemed his company and discourse to be a great ornament."

It was during this time that Donne met his future wife. In 1600, Lady Egerton died and her sixteen year old neice, Anne More, became mistress of Sir Thomas's household, presiding at his table. By 1601 Donne had become a Member of Parliament in addtion to his duties to Sir Thomas, but that year, Anne's father, Sir George More, Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower, become aware of the growing affection between his daughter and Donne, and brought her home again to prevent anything coming of it. Donne was rising in the world, but he'd spent most of his fortune on travelling, books, and "dear-bought experience," so it wasn't a prudent match for Sir George's daughter.

However, before she was removed, Donne and Anne had made promises to each other and the time apart did not change their minds. They were secretly married at the end of 1601, but Sir George soon found out, and in his understandable fury convinced Sir Thomas to fire Donne. When Donne wrote to his wife to tell her this news, he signed his letter "John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done."

Not satisfied with this, Sir George had Donne imprisoned until the marriage was proven valid. Donne attempted a reconciliation with his father-in-law, and while Sir George eventually forgave and grew to love him as a son, it was many years before he gave his daughter her dowry, and the couple lived in poverty.

Walton says that this imprudent marriage was the greatest mistake of Donne's life and that Donne himself recognized it, "and doubtless it had been attended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so mutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly, than the banquets of dull and low-spirited people."

            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 worlds’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 everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

Song

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

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 be’st 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.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

[By the way, this poem plays a crucial role in Diana Wynne Jones’ book Howl’s Moving Castle. If you haven’t read that book, stop right now and put it on your TBR list. If you've seen the movie, it's a good movie and all that, but it DOES NOT COUNT. You must read the book, O Best Beloved. You’ll thank me this summer when you need some light reading. Jones is the one who put me onto Donne in the first place (he’s quoted or alluded to in many of her stories), and I like many of her books, but I don’t recommend them all -- she’s sort of like the girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead.]

Since I’m writing about Donne’s early life, this poem seems more in keeping with the popular idea of him as a young man, doesn’t it? A ladies’ man made cynical by so many disappointments in love. But I hope by describing his religious upbringing and his desire to be a good Christian in my two earlier posts to counter-balance that idea. There’s an illuminating passage from Mr Walton’s biography that I think is worth quoting at length:

About the nineteenth year of his age, he, being then unresolved what religion to adhere to, and considering how much it concerned his soul to choose the most orthodox, did therefore, – though his youth and health promised him a long life – to rectify all scruples that might concern that, presently laid aside all study of the Law, and of all other sciences that might give him a denomination; and began seriously to survey and consider the body of Divinity, as it was then controverted betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. And, as God’s blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search, and in that industry did never forsake him – they be his own words [in his preface to Pseudo-Martyr] – so he calls the same Holy Spirit to witness his protestation; that in that disquisition and search, he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himself; and by that which he took to be the safest way; namely, frequent prayers, and an indifferent affection to both parties; and indeed, Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an enquirer; and he had too much ingenuity, not to acknowledge he had found her.

Note that when Walton says “being then unresolved what religion to adhere to,” he doesn’t mean Donne was trying to decide whether to be a Christian. There was no question of that. He was trying to decide which church, or as we would say, which denomination, to join as an adult, and I think this is a testimony of a young man who desired to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he was called, however imperfectly.

It is well known that during his years in London, Donne spent a lot of time at Queen Elizabeth’s court, and that couldn’t have been a good influence on anyone’s morals. But I hesitate to assume that all of his Disappointed in Love poems are biographical. The one quoted above was set to music, as were several others, and courtly love ala Eleanor of Aquitaine was the mode of Elizabeth’s court. Nearly all of his early poetry was distributed among his friends for their amusement, as Walton says:

The recreations of his youth were poetry, in which he was so happy, as if nature and all her varieties had been made only to exercise his sharp wit and high fancy; and in those pieces which were facetiously composed and carelessly scattered, – most of them being written before the twentieth year of his age – it may appear by his choice metaphors, that both nature and all the arts joined to assist him with their utmost skill.

I don’t want to excuse what Donne himself called “irregularities of [his] life,” but I do want to place it into its proper context. Flirtation was an expected part of life at court, and so was the poetry of disappointed love. It was as common to Elizabethan poetry as it is to our country western music. Even though Donne felt he had much to repent of, I don’t think we have to assume that he was completely dissipated, the way he’s often portrayed.

I want to leave you with another song he wrote, this one to his wife when he was facing an absence of two months from her, after ten years of marriage.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Song

Sweetest love, I do not go,
    For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
    A fitter love for me;
        But since that I
At the last must part, ’tis best,
Thus to use myself in jest
    By feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
    And yet is here to-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
    Nor half so short a way;
        Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
    More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man’s power,
    That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
    Nor a lost hour recall;
        But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
    Itself o’er us to advance.

When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind,
    But sigh’st my soul away;
When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
    My life’s blood doth decay.
        It cannot be
That thou lovest me as thou say’st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
    That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
    Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
    And may thy fears fulfil.
        But think that we
Are but turn’d aside to sleep.
They who one another keep
    Alive, ne'er parted be.

TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT

SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE ANCHOR AND CHRIST
A Sheaf of Snakes used heretofore to be my Seal, which is the Crest of our poor family

Adopted in God’s family, and so
My old coat lost, into new Arms I go.
The Cross, my Seal in Baptism, spread below,
Does by that form into an Anchor grow.
Crosses grow Anchors, bear as thou shouldst do
Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too.
But he that makes our Crosses Anchors thus,
Is Christ, who there is crucified for us.
Yet with this I may my first Serpents hold; –
God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old –
The Serpent, may, as wise, my pattern be;
My poison, as he feeds on dust, that’s me.
And, as he rounds the earth to murder, sure
He is my death; but on the Cross, my cure,
Crucify nature then; and then implore
All grace from him, crucified there before.
When all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown
This Seal’s a Catechism, not a Seal alone.
Under that little Seal great gifts I send,
Both works and prayes, pawns and fruits of a friend.
Oh! may that Saint that rides on our Great Seal,
To you that bear his name, large bounty deal.
                                                                        JOHN DONNE.



.

.


[Translated from Latin, presumably by Mr. Walton. Shortly before his death, Donne had a miniature of Christ on an anchor, in the manner of a crucifix, engraved in bloodstone and set in gold. Several copies were made and given to his closest friends as tokens of his affection.]

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

[... continued from yesterday...]

After a couple of years in London, Donne had reached the age when it was usual to be confirmed in the Church, but hadn’t yet decided which denomination to join. Out of love and respect for his parents and not wishing to cause a breach with his family, he was inclined to join the Roman Catholic church, but knowing how important a decision he was making he decided to study the best apologists for the Roman and Reformed faiths to find out which one was the more orthodox.

Walton says that Donne eventually left the study of the law in order to devote himself to prayerful study of this question and that he did come to the truth, but he never states when Donne was confirmed in the Anglican church, and I haven’t been able to find out from the few other sources I’ve looked into.

Donne was nineteen years old when he began this study.

Holy Sonnet XIV

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knocke; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you,'and would be lov'd faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie;
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish mee.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

"Master John Donne was born in London, in the year 1573*, of good and virtuous parents," says his biographer and friend, Izaak Walton, who wrote The Life of Dr. Donne in 1640. His parents were devout Roman Catholics and Donne was initally educated at home by Jesuits, becoming fluent in both French and Latin before entering Oxford at the age of eleven.

He studied there for three years and then was transferred to Cambridge, "that he might have nourishment of both soils," where he studied until he was seventeen. Although he was a diligent student he never took a degree at either university since in order to do so he would have had to swear the Oath of Supremacy, declaring Queen Elizabeth to be the head of the Church in England, which would have gone against his Catholic upbringing. In fact, his mother was the great-niece of Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the Church.

[to be continued...]


* Everyone else lists his birth date as 1572; I don't know why the discrepancy.

A Hymne to God the Father

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

                                      I.
Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne, through which I runne,
    And do run still: though still I do deplore?
        When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
                    For I have more.

                                      II.
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I have wonne
    Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I did shunne
    A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
        When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
                        For I have more.

                                      III.
I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
    My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
But sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
    Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
        And, having done that, Thou hast done,
                        I feare no more.

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.

Crosses
My affection for Diana Wynne Jones got me started on Donne - one of his poems is the key to a problem in one of her novels, and she has a character who quotes or alludes to him regularly. He points out such details that I would never notice - but have been noticing them myself since reading this poem, "The Crosse":

Since Christ embrac'd the Crosse it selfe, dare I
His image, th'image of His Cross, deny?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen Altar to despise?
It bore all other sinnes, but is it fit
That it should beare the sinne of scorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How would he flye his paines, who there did dye?
From mee no Pulpit, nor misgrounded law,
Nor scandall taken, shall this Crosse withdraw,
It shall not, for it cannot; for the losse
Of this Crosse were to mee another Crosse.
Better were worse, for no affliction,
No Crosse is so extreme, as to have none;
Who can blot out the Crosse, which th'instrument
Of God dew'd on mee in the Sacrament?
Who can deny mee power, and liberty
To stretch mine arms, and mine owne Crosse to be?
Swimme, and at every stroake thou art thy Crosse,
The Mast and yard make one, where seas do tosse.
Looke downe, thou spiest out Crosses in small things;
Looke up, thou seest birds rais'd on crossed wings;
All the Globes frame, and spheares, is nothing else
But the Meridians crossing Parallels.
Materiall Crosses then, good physicke bee,
But yet spirituall have chiefe dignity.
These for extracted chemique medicine serve,
And cure much better, and as well preserve.
Then are you your own physicke, or need none,
When Still'd or purg'd by tribulation.
For when that Crosse ungrudg'd unto you stickes,
Then are you to yourselfe a Crucifixe.
As perchance, Carvers do not faces make:
But that away, which hid them there, do take.
Let Crosses, soe, take what hid Christ in thee,
And be his image, or not his, but hee.
But, as oft Alchemists doe coyners prove,
So may a selfe-despising, get selfe-love.
And then as worst surfets, of best meates bee,
Soe is pride, issued from humility,
For, 'tis no child, but monster; therefore Crosse
Your joy in crosses, else, 'tis double losse,
And crosse thy senses, else, both they, and thou
Must perish soone, and to destruction bowe.
For if the'eye seeke good objects, and will take
No crosse from bad, wee cannot 'scape a snake.
So with harsh, hard, sowre, stinking, crosse the rest,
Make them indifferent; call nothing best.
But most the eye needs crossing, that can rome,
And move; To th'other th'objects must come home.
And crosse thy heart; for that in man alone
Pants downewards, and hath palpitation.
Crosse those dejections, when it downeward tends,
And when it to forbidden heights pretends.
And as the braine through bony walls doth vent
By sutures, which a Crosses forme present,
So when thy braine workes, ere thou utter it,
Crosse and correct concupiscence of witt.
Be covetous of Crosses; let none fall;
Crosse no man else, but crosse thyself in all.
Then doth the Crosse of Christ work faithfully
Within our hearts, when wee love harmlessly
The Crosses pictures much, and with more care
That Crosses children, which our Crosses are.