110
DONNE’S POEMS.
Though you be much loved in the prince’s hall,
There things that seem exceed substantial;
Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well,
Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell;
You’re loathsome all, being taken simply alone;
Shall we love ill things join’d, and hate each one?
If you were good, your good doth soon decay;
70And you are rare; that takes the good away:
And my perfumes I give most willingly
To embalm thy father’s corpse; what? will he die?
There things that seem exceed substantial;
Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well,
Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell;
You’re loathsome all, being taken simply alone;
Shall we love ill things join’d, and hate each one?
If you were good, your good doth soon decay;
70And you are rare; that takes the good away:
And my perfumes I give most willingly
To embalm thy father’s corpse; what? will he die?
ELEGY V.
HIS PICTURE.
Here take my picture; though I bid farewell,
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more,
When we are shadows both, than ’twas before.
When weatherbeaten I come back; my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s harsh sudden hoariness o’erspread,
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
10And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,
So foul and coarse, as, O! I may seem then,
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more,
When we are shadows both, than ’twas before.
When weatherbeaten I come back; my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s harsh sudden hoariness o’erspread,
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
10And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,
So foul and coarse, as, O! I may seem then,
l. 8. So 1635; 1633, With care’s rash sudden storms being o’erspread,
