 | Poems, By J. D. [i.e. John Donne] |  |
153
Elegie. [The Dream.]
Image of her whom I love, more then she,Whose faire impression in my faithfull heart,
Makes mee her Medall, and makes her love mee,
As Kings do coynes, to which their stamps impart
The value: goe, and take my heart from hence,
Which now is growne too great and good for me:
Honours oppresse weake spirits, and our sense,
Strong objects dull, the more, the lesse wee see,
When you are gone, and Reason gone with you,
Then Fantasie is Queene and Soule, and all;
She can present joyes meaner then you do;
Convenient, and more proportionall.
So, if I dreame I have you, I have you,
For, all our joyes are but fantasticall.
And so I scape the paine, for paine is true;
And sleepe which locks up sense, doth lock out all
After a such fruition I shall wake,
And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;
And shall to love more thankfull Sonnets make,
Then if more honour, teares, and paines were spent.
But dearest heart, and dearer image stay;
Alas, true joyes at best are dreame enough;
Though you stay here you passe too fast away:
For even at first lifes Taper is a snuffe.
Fill'd with her love, may I be rather grown
Mad with much heart, then ideott with none.
| Poems, By J. D. [i.e. John Donne] | |