John Donne’s (1572 – 1631) fabulous poem for St Lucy’s day, “being the shortest day” seems harder to find online in its original spelling, so I thought I’d preserve it here.
| TIS the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes, | |
| Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes, | |
| The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks | |
| Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes; | |
| The worlds whole sap is sunke: | 5 |
| The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk, | |
| Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke, | |
| Dead and enterr’d; yet all these seeme to laugh, | |
| Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.
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| Study me then, you who shall lovers bee | 10 |
| At the next world, that is, at the next Spring: | |
| For I am every dead thing, | |
| In whom love wrought new Alchimie. | |
| For his art did expresse | |
| A quintessence even from nothingnesse, | 15 |
| From dull privations, and leane emptinesse: | |
| He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot | |
| Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not. | |
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All others, from all things, draw all that’s good, |
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| Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have; | 20 |
| I, by loves limbecke, am the grave | |
| Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood | |
| Have wee two wept, and so | |
| Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow | |
| To be two Chaosses, when we did show | 25 |
| Care to ought else; and often absences | |
| Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.
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| But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her) | |
| Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown; | |
| Were I a man, that I were one, | 30 |
| I needs must know; I should preferre, | |
| If I were any beast, | |
| Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest, | |
| And love; All, all some properties invest; | |
| If I an ordinary nothing were, | 35 |
| As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
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| But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew. | |
| You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne | |
| At this time to the Goat is runne | |
| To fetch new lust, and give it you, | 40 |
| Enjoy your summer all; | |
| Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall, | |
| Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call | |
| This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this | |
| Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is. |
Filed under: Poem
