|
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, |
|
Why dost thou thus, |
| Through windows and through curtains
call on us ? |
| Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run
? |
|
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide |
|
Late school-boys, and sour ’prentices, |
| Go tell court-huntsmen
that the King will ride, |
| Call country ants to
harvest offices ; |
| Love, all alike, no season knows, nor
clime, |
Nor hours, days, months, which are the
rags of time.
|
|
Thy beams, so reverend and strong |
|
Why shouldst thou think? |
| I could eclipse and cloud them with a
wink, |
| But that I would not lose her sight so
long : |
|
If her eyes have not blinded thine, |
|
Look, and tomorrow late tell me, |
| Whether both the Indias of
spice and mine |
| Be where thou left’st
them, or lie here with me. |
| Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st
yesterday |
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one
bed lay.’
|
|
She’s all States, and all Princes I ; |
|
Nothing else is. |
| Princes do play us ; compared to this, |
| All honour’s mimic ; all wealth
alchemy. |
|
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, |
|
In that the world’s contracted thus ; |
| Thine age asks ease, and
since thy duties be |
| To warm the world, that’s
done in warming us. |
| Shine here to us, and thou art
everywhere ; |
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy
sphere.
|
| John Donne
| Classic Poems |
| |
|
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