Thou, looking then about
Ere thou wert half got out,

Wise child, didst hastily return,

And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn. How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN

Did wiser Nature draw thee back

From out the horror of that sack,

Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right
Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night,
Urged, hurried forth, and hurled

Upon th' affrighted world;

Fire, famine, and fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set:

As, could they but life's miseries foresee,

No doubt all infants would return like thee.

THE EPODE, OR STAND

For what is life, if measured by the space,
Not by the act?

Or masked man, if valued by his face

Above his fact?

Here's one outlived his peers

And told forth fourscore years;

He vexed time and busied the whole state,

Troubled both foes and friends,

But ever to no ends:

What did this stirrer but die late?

How well at twenty had he fallen or stood!
For three of his four score he did no good.

II

THE STROPHE, OR TURN

He entered well by virtuous parts,

Got up, and thrived with honest arts,

He purchased friends and fame and honours then,
And had his noble name advanced with men;

But, weary of that flight,

He stooped in all men's sight

35

To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunk in that dead sea of life
So deep as he did then death's waters sup,
But that the cork of title buoyed him up.

40

THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN Alas, but Morison fell young!

He never fell-thou fall'st, my tongue.

45

He stood a soldier to the last right end,
A perfect patriot, and a noble friend,
But most a virtuous son.

All offices were done

Go now, and tell our days summed up with fears,

And make them years;

Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,

To swell thine age;

Repeat of things a throng,

To show thou hast been long,

Not lived: for Life doth her great actions spell

By what was done and wrought

In season, and so brought

To light; her measures are, how well

Each syllabe answered, and was formed how fair;
These make the lines of Life, and that's her air.

III

THE STROPHE, OR TURN

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far, in May,

Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.

55

60

65

70

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN Call, noble Lucius, then, for wine,

And let thy looks with gladness shine;
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,

And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead.
He leaped the present age,

Possest with holy rage

To see that bright eternal day,

Of which we priests and poets say

Such truths as we expect for happy men.
And there he lives with memory, and Ben

THE EPODE, OR STAND

Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,
Himself, to rest,

Or taste a part of that full joy he meant

To have exprest

In this bright asterism:

Where it were friendship's schism,

Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,

To separate these twi

Lights, the Dioscuri,

And keep the one half from his Harry.

But Fate doth so alternate the design,

Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth, must shine,

IV

THE STROPHE, OR TURN

And shine as you exalted are;

Two names of friendship, but one star

Of hearts the union; and those not by chance
Made, or indenture, or leased out t'advance

The profits for a time:

No pleasures vain did chime,

Of rhymes or riots, at your feasts,

75

80

85

90

95

100

Orgies of drink or feigned protests;

But simple love of greatness and of good,

105

That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.

THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN

This made you first to know the why
You liked, then after to apply

That liking, and approach so one the t' other,

Till either grew a portion of the other,

Each styled by his end,

The copy of his friend.

You lived to be the great sir-names And titles by which all made claims Unto the virtue: nothing perfect done But as a Cary or a Morison.

THE EPODE, OR STAND

And such a force the fair example had
As they that saw

The good and durst not practise it were glad

That such a law

Was left yet to mankind;

Where they might read and find

Friendship, indeed, was written not in words,

And with the heart, not pen,

Of two so early men,

1115

120

125

Whose lines her rolls were, and records; Who, ere the first down bloomèd on the chin, Had sowed these fruits and got the harvest in.

1629.

1640.

AN ELEGY

Fair friend, 't is true your beauties move

My heart to a respect

Too little to be paid with love,

Too great for your neglect.

I neither love nor yet am free;
For though the flame I find

Be not intense in the degree,

'Tis of the purest kind.

It little wants of love but pain:

Your beauty takes my sense;

And lest you should that price disdain,

My thoughts too feel the influence.

5

10

'Tis not a passion's first access,

Ready to multiply;

But, like love's calmest state, it is
Possest with victory.

It is like love to truth reduced,

All the false values gone

Which were created and induced

By fond imagination.

'Tis either fancy or 't is fate

To love you more than I:

I love you at your beauty's rate;
Less were an injury.

Like unstampt gold, I weigh each grace,

So that you may collect

Th' intrinsic value of your face

Safely from my respect.

And this respect would merit love,

Were not so fair a sight

Payment enough; for who dare move

Reward for his delight?

1640.

JOHN DONNE

SATIRES

FROM

SATIRE I

"Away, thou changeling motley humourist!
Leave me; and in this standing wooden chest,
Consorted with these few books, let me lie
In prison, and here be coffined when I die.
Here are God's conduits, grave divines; and here

Nature's secretary, the philosopher;

And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie
The sinews of a city's mystic body;

Here gathering chroniclers; and by them stand
Giddy fantastic poets of each land.

ΙΟ

5

330

25

20

15