Poems, By J. D. [i.e. John Donne] With Elegies on the Authors Death |
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Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the Countesse of Bedford.
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 | Poems, By J. D. [i.e. John Donne] |  |
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Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother. To the Countesse of Bedford.
Faire soule, which wast, not onely, as all soules bee,Then when thou wast infused, harmony,
But did'st continue so; and now dost beare
A part in Gods great organ, this whole Spheare:
If looking up to God; or downe to us,
Thou finde that any way is pervious,
Twixt heav'n and earth, and that mans actions doe
Come to your knowledge, and affections too,
See, and with joy, mee to that good degree
Of goodnesse growne, that I can studie thee,
And, by these meditations refin'd,
Can unapparell and enlarge my minde,
And so can make by this soft extasie,
This place a map of heav'n, my selfe of thee.
Thou seest mee here at midnight, now all rest;
Times dead-low water; when all mindes devest
To morrows businesse, when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last Church-yard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be'a type of this,
Now when the clyent, whose last hearing is
To morrow, sleeps, when the condemned man,
(Who when hee opes his eyes, must shut them than
Againe by death,) although sad watch hee keepe,
Doth practice dying by a little sleepe,
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As that Sunne rises to mee, midnight's noone,
All the world growes transparent, and I see
Through all, both Church and State, in seeing thee;
And I discerne by favour of this light,
My selfe, the hardest object of the sight.
God is the glasse; as thou when thou dost see
Him who sees all, seest all concerning thee,
So, yet unglorified, I comprehend
All, in these mirrors of thy wayes, and end;
Though God be our true glass, through which we see
All, since the beeing of all things is hee,
Yet are the trunkes which doe to us derive
Things, in proportion fit by perspective,
Deeds of good men, for by their living here,
Vertues, indeed remote, seeme to be nere;
But where can I affirme, or where arrest
My thoughts on his deeds? which shall I call best?
For fluid vertue cannot be look'd on,
Nor can endure a contemplation;
As bodies change, and as I do not weare
Those Spirits, humors, blood I did last yeare,
And, as if on a streame I fixe mine eye,
That drop, which I looked on, is presently
Pusht with more waters from my sight, and gone,
So in this sea of vertues, can no one
Bee'insisted on, vertues, as rivers, passe,
Yet still remaines that vertuous man there was;
And as if man feeds on mans flesh, and so
Part of his body to another owe,
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Because God knowes where every Atome lyes;
So, if one knowledge were made of all those,
Who knew his minutes well, hee might dispose
His vertues into names, and ranks; but I
Should injure Nature, Vertue, and Destinie,
Should I divide and discontinue so,
Vertue, which did in one intirenesse grow.
For as, hee that would say, spirits are fram'd
Of all the purest parts that can be nam'd,
Honours not spirits halfe so much, as hee
Which sayes, they have no parts, but simple bee;
So is't of vertue; for a point and one
Are much entirer then a million.
And had Fate meant to have his vertues told,
It would have let him live to have beene old,
So then, that vertue in season, and then this,
We might have seene, and said, that now he is
Witty, now wise, now temperate, now just:
In good short lives, vertues are faine to thrust,
And to be sure betimes to get a place,
When they would exercise, lacke time, and space.
So was it in this person, forc'd to bee
For lack of time, his owne epitome.
So to exhibit in few yeares as much,
As all the long breath'd Chronicles can touch;
As when an Angell down from heav'n doth flye,
Our quick thought cannot keepe him company,
Wee cannot thinke, now hee is at the Sunne,
Now through the Moon, now he through th'aire doth run,
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To all twixt Heav'n and Earth, Sunne, Moon, and Aire.
And as this Angell in an instant, knowes,
And yet wee know, this sodaine knowledge growes
By quick amassing severall formes of things,
Which he successively to order brings;
When they, whose slow pac'd lame thoughts cannot goe
So fast as hee, thinke that he doth not so;
Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell,
On every syllable, nor stay to spell,
Yet without doubt, hee doth distinctly see
And lay together every A, and B;
So, in short liv'd good men, is'not understood
Each severall vertue, but the compound good.
For, they all vertues paths in that pace tread,
As Angells goe, and know, and as men read.
O why should then these men, these lumps of Balme
Sent hither, the worlds tempest to becalme,
Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spred,
And so make us alive, themselves be dead?
O Soule, O circle, why so quickly bee
Thy ends, thy birth and death clos'd up in thee?
Since one foot of thy compasse still was plac'd
In heav'n, the other might securely'have pac'd
In the most large extent, through every path,
Which the whole world, or man, the abridgment hath.
Thou knowst, that though the tropique circles have
(Yea and those small ones which the Poles engrave,)
All the same roundnesse, evennesse, and all
The endlesnesse of the equinoctiall;
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How here, how there, the Sunne affected is,
When he doth faintly worke, and when prevaile,
Onely great circles, then, can be our scale:
So, though thy circle to thy selfe expresse
All, tending to thy endlesse happinesse,
And wee, by our good use of it may trye,
Both how to live well young, and how to die,
Yet, since we must be old, and age endures
His Torrid Zone at Court, and calentures
Of hot ambitions, irrelegions ice,
Zeales agues; and hydroptique avarice,
Infirmities which need the scale of truth,
As well, as lust and ignorance of youth;
Why did'st thou not for these give medicines too,
And by thy doing tell us what to doe?
Though as small pocket-clocks, whose every wheele
Doth each mismotion and distemper feele,
Whose hands get shaking palsies, and whose string
(His sinewes) slackens, and whose Soule, the spring,
Expires, or languishes, whose pulse, the flye,
Either beates not, or beates unevenly,
Whose voice, the Bell, doth rattle, or grow dumbe,
Or idle, 'as men, which to their last houres come,
If these clockes be not wound, or be wound still,
Or be not set, or set at every will;
So, youth is easiest to destruction,
If then wee follow all, or follow none;
Yet, as in great clocks, which in steeples chime,
Plac'd to informe whole towns, to'imploy their time,
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When, small clocks faults, only'on the wearer fall.
So worke the faults of age, on which the eye
Of children, servants, or the State relie.
Why wouldst not thou then, which hadst such a soule,
A clock so true, as might the Sunne controule,
And daily hadst from him, who gave it thee,
Instructions, such as it could never be
Disordered, stay here, as a generall
And great Sun-dyall, to have set us All?
O why wouldst thou be any instrument
To this unnaturall course, or why consent
To this, not miracle, but Prodigie,
That when the ebbs, longer then flowings be,
Vertue, whose flood did with thy youth begin,
Should so much faster ebb out, then flow in?
Though her flood was blowne in, by thy first breath,
All is at once sunke in the whirle-poole death.
Which word I would not name, but that I see
Death, else a desert, growne a Court by thee.
Now I grow sure, that if a man would have
Good companie, his entry is a grave.
Mee thinkes all Cities, now, but Anthills bee,
Where, when the severall labourers I see,
For children, house, Provision, taking paine,
They'are all but Ants, carrying eggs, straw, and grain;
And Church-yards are our cities, unto which
The most repaire, that are in goodnesse rich.
There is the best concourse, and confluence,
There are the holy suburbs, and from thence
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Which doth extend her utmost gates to them;
At that gate then Triumphant soule, dost thou
Begin thy Triumph; But since lawes allow
That at the Triumph day, the people may,
All that they will, 'gainst the Triumpher say,
Let me here use that freedome, and expresse
My griefe, though not to make thy Triumph lesse.
By law, to Triumphs none admitted bee,
Till they as Magistrates get victorie,
Though then to thy force, all youthes foes did yield,
Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field,
To which thy ranke in this state destin'd thee,
That there thy counsailes might get victorie,
And so in that capacitie remove,
All jealousies, 'twixt Prince and subjects love,
Thou could'st no title, to this triumph have,
Thou didst intrude on death, usurp'st a grave.
That (though victoriously) thou hadst fought as yet
But with thine owne affections, with the heate
Of youths desires, and colds of ignorance,
But till thou should'it successefully advance
Thine armes 'gainst forraine enemies, which are
Both Envy, and acclamation popular,
(For, both these engines equally defeate,
Though by a divers Mine, those which are great,)
Till then thy War was but a civill War,
For which to Triumph, none admitted are;
No more are they, who though with good successe,
In a defensive war, their power expresse,
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Must be enlarg'd, and not preserv'd alone;
Why should'st thou then, whose battailes were to win
Thy selfe, from those straits nature put thee in,
And to deliver up to God that state,
Of which he gave thee the vicariate.
(Which is thy soule and body) as intire
As he, who takes endeavours, doth require,
But didst not stay, t'enlarge his kingdome too,
By making others; what thou didst, to doe;
Why shouldst thou Triumph now, when Heav'n no more
Hath got, by getting thee, then t'had before?
For, Heav'n and thou, even when thou livedst here,
Of one another in possession were;
But this from Triumph most disables thee,
That, that place which is conquered, must bee
Left safe from present warre, and likely doubt
Of imminent commotions to breake out.
And hath he left us so? or can it bee
His territory was no more then Hee?
No, we were all his charge, the Diocis
Of ev'ry exemplar man, the whole world is,
And he was joyned in commission
With Tutelar Angels, sent to every one.
But though this freedome to upbraid, and chide
Him who Triumph'd, were lawfull, it was ty'd
With this, that it might never reference have
Unto the Senate, who this triumph gave;
Men might at Pompey jeast, but they might not
At that authoritie, by which he got
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So, though triumphant soule, I dare to write,
Mov'd with a reverentiall anger, thus,
That thou so earely wouldst abandon us;
Yet I am farre from daring to dispute
With that great soveraigntie, whose absolute
Prerogative hath thus dispens'd with thee,
'Gainst natures lawes, which just impugners bee
Of early triumphs; And I (though with paine)
Lessen our losse, to magnifie thy gaine
Of triumph, when I say, It was more fit,
That all men should lacke thee, then thou lack it.
Though then in our time, be not suffered
That testimonie of love, unto the dead,
To die with them, and in their graves be hid,
As Saxon wives, and French soldarii did;
And though in no degree I can expresse,
Griefe in great Alexanders great excesse,
Who at his friends death, made whole townes devest
Their walls and bullwarks which became them best:
Doe not, faire soule, this sacrifice refuse,
That in thy grave I doe interre my Muse,
Who, by my griefe, great as thy worth, being cast
Behind hand, yet hath spoke, and spoke her last.
| Poems, By J. D. [i.e. John Donne] | |