XLVI. S THE MESSAGE. JOHN DONNE, 1573-1631. END home my long-strayed eyes to me, Which, oh! too long have dwelt on thee; But if there they have learnt such ill, Such forced fashions And false passions, That they be Made by thee Fit for no good sight, keep them still. Send home my harmless heart again, Which no unworthy thought could stain; But if it be taught by thine To make jestings Of protestings, And break both Word and oath, Keep it, for then 'tis none of mine. Yet send me back my heart and eyes, And may laugh and joy when thou And dost languish For some one That will none, Or prove as false as thou dost now. XLVII. VALEDICTION, FORBIDDING MOURNING. As S virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go; So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, But trepidations of the spheres, Though greater far, are innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence; for that it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we, by a love so far refined, 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 fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth if the 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, And makes me end where I begun. XLVIII. A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. ILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun, WILT Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun I fear no more. XLIX. WE THE FUNERAL. HOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch, Viceroy to that which, then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall Can tie those parts, and make me one of all, The hairs, which upward grew, and strength and art Have from a better brain, Can better do't: except she meant that I By this should know my pain, As prisoners then are manacled, when they're condemned to die. Whate'er she meant by 't, bury it with me! For since I am |