Poems of John Donne/Volume 1

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POEMS

OF

JOHN DONNE.

The Muses’ Library

POEMS

OF

JOHN DONNE

EDITED BY

E. K. CHAMBERS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

VOL. I.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

PREFACE.

John Donne’s Poems were originally undertaken for The Muses Library by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson. They were handed over to me shortly after his death in 1891. I have had the advantage of the material which Dr. Nicholson had brought together; but for the book as it stands, with the exception of the Introduction, which Mr. Saintsbury has kindly contributed, I am alone responsible.

The bulk of the text is based upon the principal seventeenth-century editions, those of 1633, 1635, 1650 and 1669. No one of these is of supreme authority, and therefore I have had no choice but to be eclectic. But at the same time I have endeavoured to give all variants, other than obvious misprints, in the footnotes. Here and there one or other of the innumerable MS. copies has been of service. I have modernized the spelling and corrected the exceptionally chaotic punctuation of the old editions. And so, though much remains obscure, I trust that I have provided a more intelligible version of the Poems than any that has yet appeared.

It should be understood that a reading attributed to any one of the printed editions in the footnotes is retained in the later editions, unless it is otherwise stated.

My thanks are due for various help to Dr. Grosart, to Mr. J. T. Brown of Edinburgh, and to Mr. A. H. Bullen. Dr. Nicholson’s notes contain abundant evidence of the similar debt which he owed to Mr. J. M. Thomson of Edinburgh.

E. K. C.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

page
	Preface		v
	Table of Contents		vii
	Introduction		xi
	Bibliographical Note		xxxv
	The Printer to the Understanders		xlv
	To the Right Honourable William Lord Craven		xlix
	Hexastichon Bibliopolae		li
	Hexastichon ad Bibliopolam		li
	To John Donne		lii
Songs and Sonnets —
	The Flea		1
	The Good-Morrow		3
	Song: Go and catch a falling star		4
	Woman’s Constancy		5
	The Undertaking		6
	The Sun Rising		7
	The Indifferent		9
	Love’s Usury		10
	The Canonization		12
	The Triple Fool		14
	Lovers’ Infiniteness		15
	Song: Sweetest love, I do not go		16
	The Legacy		18
	A Fever		20
	Air and Angels		21
	Break of Day		22
	[Another of the same]		23
	The Anniversary		24
	A Valediction of my Name, in the Window		25
	Twickenham Garden		29
	Valediction to his Book		30
	Community		33
	Love’s Growth		34
	Love’s Exchange		35
	Confined Love		37
	The Dream		38
	A Valediction of Weeping		39
	Love’s Alchemy		41
	The Curse		42
	The Message		43
	A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, being the Shortest Day		45
	Witchcraft by a Picture		47
	The Bait		47
	The Apparition		49
	The Broken Heart		50
	A Valediction Forbidding Mourning		51
	The Ecstacy		53
	Love’s Deity		56
	Love’s Diet		57
	The Will		59
	The Funeral		61
	The Blossom		63
	The Primrose		64
	The Relic		66
	The Damp		67
	The Dissolution		69
	A Jet Ring Sent		70
	Negative Love		71
	The Prohibition		72
	The Expiration		73
	The Computation		74
	The Paradox		74
	Song: Soul’s joy, now I am gone		75
	Farewell to Love		76
	A Lecture upon the Shadow		78
	A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne		79
	The Token		80
	Self-love		81
Epithalamions, or Marriage Songs —
	On the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine		83
	Eclogue: at the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset		88
	Epithalamion Made at Lincoln’s Inn		99
Elegies —
	i :	Jealousy	102
	ii :	The Anagram	103
	iii :	Change	106
	iv :	The Perfume	107
	v :	His Picture	110
	vi :		111
	vii :		113
	viii :	The Comparison	114
	ix :	The Autumnal	117
	x :	The Dream	119
	xi :	The Bracelet	120
	xii :		125
	xiii :	His Parting from Her	128
	xiv :	Julia	132
	xv :	A Tale of a Citizen and his Wife	133
	xvi :	The Expostulation	136
	xvii :	Elegy on his Mistress	139
	xviii :		141
	xix :		144
	xx :	To his Mistress Going to Bed	148
Divine Poems —
		To the E[arl] of D[oncaster], with Six Holy Sonnets	151
	1.	La Corona	152
	2.	Annunciation	152
	3.	Nativity	153
	4.	Temple	153
	5.	Crucifying	154
	6.	Resurrection	155
	7.	Ascension	155
		To the Lady Magdalen Herbert	156
		Holy Sonnets: i.–xvi.	157
		The Cross	167
		Resurrection	169
		The Annunciation and Passion	170
		Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward	172
		A Litany	174
		Upon the Translation of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke	188
		Ode : Vengeance will Sit above our Faults	190
		To Mr. Tilman after he had Taken Orders	191
		A Hymn to Christ	193
		The Lamentations of Jeremy	194
		Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness	211
		A Hymn to God the Father	213
		To George Herbert	214
		A Sheaf of Snakes Used heretofore to be my Seal	215
		Translated out of Gazaeus	216
Notes to Vol. I.			217