[JOHN DONNE was born in London in 1573, and studied both at Oxford and Cambridge. At the age of nineteen he abandoned the Roman Catholic religion. Having secretly married the niece of Lord Ellesmere, to whom he was secretary, he lost the friendship of that nobleman, and, after seeking for civil appointments in vain, took orders. He became an eminent preacher, and was made Dean of St. Paul's. He died in 1631.

Donne is best known for his satires. He was a man of great learning and extraordinary wit, and was not a bad poet.]

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies: I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;

To women, or the sea, my tears;

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,

By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none but such as had too much

before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live ;
Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence to any who abroad have been;
My money to a Capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
All my good works unto the schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to an university;

My modesty I give to soldiers bare;

My patience let gamesters share; Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ;

And to my company my wit:

Thou, Love, by making me adore

Her who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but

restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

I give my physic books; my written rolls.
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals, unto them which live
In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, my English tongue :

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

The world by dying, because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth,
And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me

Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all

three.

SUNDAY.

BY GEORGE HERBERT.

[GEORGE HERBERT, the son of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was born at Montgomery Castle in 1593, and was educated at Cambridge. He became a favourite of James I.; but the death of that monarch and some other patrons blighting his prospect of promotion at Court, he took orders, after which he was made a prebend of Lincoln, and was appointed to the living of Bemerton in Wiltshire. He discharged his clerical duties with great zeal, and with more energy than his strength permitted. He died at Bemerton in 1632, at the early age of thirtynine.

His poetry is not of the very highest order. There are many beautiful passages in his works, but his imagery is fantastic, and his style is often strained and unnatural.]

O DAY most calm, most bright,

The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time, care's balm and bay:
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The workydays are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow

Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone

To endless death: but thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,

We could not choose but look on still,
Since there is no place so alone,

The which he doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are

On which heaven's palace arched lies: The other days fill up the spare

And hollow room with vanities.

They are the fruitful beds and borders

In God's rich garden: that is bare,

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life, Threaded together on Time's string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;

Blessings are plentiful and rife—

More plentiful than hope.

This day my Saviour rose,

And did enclose this light for his;

That, as each beast his manger knows,

Man might not of his fodder miss.