106
DONNE’S POEMS.
ELEGY III.
CHANGE.
Although thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have seal’d thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love, yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the arts, forced unto none,
Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fowler using these means, as I,
May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,
10Women are made for men, not him nor me,
Foxes, and goats—all beasts—change when they please.
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,
Be bound to one man, and did nature then
Idly make them apter to endure than men?
They’re our clogs, not their own; if a man be
Chain’d to a galley, yet the galley’s free.
Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed corn there,
And yet allows his ground more corn should bear;
Though Danuby into the sea must flow,
20The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po,
By nature, which gave it, this liberty
Thou lovest, but O! canst thou love it and me?
Have seal’d thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love, yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the arts, forced unto none,
Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fowler using these means, as I,
May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,
10Women are made for men, not him nor me,
Foxes, and goats—all beasts—change when they please.
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,
Be bound to one man, and did nature then
Idly make them apter to endure than men?
They’re our clogs, not their own; if a man be
Chain’d to a galley, yet the galley’s free.
Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed corn there,
And yet allows his ground more corn should bear;
Though Danuby into the sea must flow,
20The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po,
By nature, which gave it, this liberty
Thou lovest, but O! canst thou love it and me?
l. 1. 1669, good word
l. 4. 1669, confirms
l. 8. 1669, those
l. 11. 1669, and beasts
l. 13. bid nature
