SONG.

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all times past 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 go 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;
Vet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true when you met her,

And last, when you wrote your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

VOL. I.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
'Now his breath goes,' and some say 'No';

So let us meet and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys,

fo tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' Earth brings harm and fears,

Men reckon what it did and meant;

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love,
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so far refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,

Careless eyes, lips, and hands, to miss;

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no shov
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

And grows erect as that comes home,

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run,
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

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

Must die at last, '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
Hastier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot ado another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!

But come bad chance,

And we join to 't our strength,

And we teach it art and length,

Itsel. o'er us t' advance.

When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st not wind,

But sigh'st my soul away;

When thou weep'st unkindly kind,

My lie's blood doth decay.

It cannot be

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st;
If in thine my life thou waste,

Thou art the life of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill,
Destiny may take my part
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we

Are but laid aside to sleep:
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.

FROM 'VERSES TO SIR HENRY WOOTTON.'

Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn anywhere; continuance maketh Hell.
And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, is still at home:
Follow (for he's easy pac'd) this snail,

Be thine own palace, or the world' thy jail.
But in the world's sea do not like cork sleep
Upon the water's face, nor in the deep
Sink like a lead without a line: but as

Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,
Nor making sound, so closely thy course go;
Let men dispute whether thou breathe or no:
Only in this be no Galenist. To make
Court's hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dram of country's dulness; do not add
Correctives, but as chymics purge the bad.
But, sir, I advise not you, I rather do

Say o'er those lessons which I learn'd of you:
Whom, free from Germany's schisms, and lightness
Of France, and fair Italie's faithlessness,

Having from these suck'd all they had of worth
And brought home that faith which you carry'd forth,
I throughly love: but if myself I've won

To know my rules, I have, and you have, Donne.

THE WILL.

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies; here I 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 hath been;
My money to a Capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love receiv'd can be,
Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

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 shoulders 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; my industry to foes;
To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;