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Cover of “Poetry”

Poetry

John Donne (1572–1631)

Witty, sensual love poems and meditative sonnets by the great English metaphysical poet. “No man is an island” began here.

First published
1633
Genre
Poetry
Length
287 pages · 74,683 words
Reading time
≈ 5 h 20 min
Language
English
License
Public domain

How it begins

Songs and Sonnets

The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and IDid, till we loved? were we not wean’d till then?But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;If ever any beauty I did see,Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,Which watch not one another out of fear;For love all love of other sights controls,And makes one little room an everywhere.Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;Where can we find two better hemispheresWithout sharp north, without declining west?Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally;If our two loves be one, or thou and ILove so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

Song. Go and Catch a Falling Star

Go and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil’s foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Keep reading in the Library

This edition

Poetry by John Donne (1572–1631) was first published in 1633. It is in the public domain worldwide: its author died more than a hundred years ago.

Text based on the Standard Ebooks edition (dedicated to the public domain under CC0), https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-donne/poetry. Their cover, imprint, colophon and licence pages were removed; the text and its structure were kept and restyled for this edition.

Original cover and design by the Arcadópolis Library.

Text source: Standard Ebooks

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