Songs and Sonnets by John Donne

Source of book: I own this.

The particular selection is somewhat misnamed. Songs there are many, but nary a true sonnet. There is one poem with two fourteen line stanzas, but it is not even close to a sonnet rhyme scheme. The one poem with “sonnet” in the title is not a true sonnet. This is particularly odd since Donne wrote a number of marvelous sonnets, including the “Holy Sonnets,” of which “Death be Not Proud” is probably the most famous. Despite this omission, this collection of poems on the theme of Love is some of Donne’s best and most human work.

I have noted before that I am a hopeless romantic, and mushy to the core. Contrary to popular gender stereotypes, I have always valued long-term commitment, I love to snuggle, and I can talk into the wee hours of the night with my beloved. Donne likewise felt things deeply. His poetry is a mixture of the sacred and profane, his devotion to God matched by passion for his wife, his doubt and questioning applying equally to the ways of God and the ways of Love. He could write transcendent musings on the nature of death and the resurrection, and also some of the most creative and memorable poems on sex and bodily fluids.

Some school curriculum, particularly the conservative Christian one that I used in high school, try to divide Donne’s writings into “before” and “after” periods. The historical fact, however, is that he wrote both types of poems throughout his life. He felt deeply, loved passionately, and sought divine perfection with the same fervor. While Donne’s writings have always resonated with me, I think I understand this paradox more now that I am in my thirties and have been married for over a decade.

I was struck by the range of Donne’s emotions and his completely contrasting views expressed throughout this collection. He praises love, then turns against it in the next poem. He rails against women and their inconstancy, but then praises the purity of the one he loves. He is tormented by love, he dismisses it as a trifle, he tries to escape it, but he is captured by it, and its grip on him is relentless.

The story of Donne’s life sheds and interesting light on his works. Donne was a young rising diplomat, educated and brilliant, if a bit profligate and quick to chase women. He appeared to have his future before him, when love stepped in to wreak havoc. He fell in love with the niece of his employer. They married against her family’s wishes, which resulted in Donne, the minister, and the witness at the wedding spending time in Fleet Prison until the marriage was proved valid. Donne lost his job, and Anne was not reconciled to her father until eight years later. The Donnes suffered from poverty, exacerbated by the fact that they had twelve children in sixteen years, only seven of which lived past age ten. (Donne, in a state of despair after one of the deaths remarked that although it was one less mouth to feed, he couldn’t afford to bury the child.) Anne died soon after the birth of the last child. Donne lived another fifteen years after this, but he never completely recovered emotionally from the loss of his true love, although his material fortunes improved.

The passion and pain run through the course of the poems, particularly the more personal ones. Donne also demonstrates his mastery of the “conceit,” an exaggerated and unusual metaphor wherein two unlike things are likened to each other in a striking and sometimes uncomfortable way. It is difficult to pick just a few to quote from the collection, as there are so many good ones.

The Cannonization

                                        

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

        Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,

        With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

               Take you a course, get you a place,

               Observe his honor, or his grace,

Or the king's real, or his stampèd face

        Contemplate; what you will, approve,

        So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?

        What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

        When did my colds a forward spring remove?

               When did the heats which my veins fill

               Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

        Litigious men, which quarrels move,

        Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

        Call her one, me another fly,

We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,

        And we in us find the eagle and the dove.

               The phœnix riddle hath more wit

               By us; we two being one, are it.

So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.

        We die and rise the same, and prove

        Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,

        And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

        And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

               We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

               As well a well-wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

        And by these hymns, all shall approve

        Us canonized for Love.

And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love

        Made one another's hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

        Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove

               Into the glasses of your eyes

               (So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize)

        Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

        A pattern of your love!"

               
I love the reference to the “five gray hairs,” and, of course, to lawyers. This is Donne in his triumphant mood. He can laugh at the world, content in his experience of love. This next one is a complete contrast, and uses the poet’s dilemma to exaggerated effect.

The Triple Fool

I am two fools, I know,

     For loving, and for saying so

         In whining poetry;

But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,

         If she would not deny?

Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes

    Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my pains

    Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.

Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

     But when I have done so,

     Some man, his art and voice to show,

         Doth set and sing my pain;

And, by delighting many, frees again

         Grief, which verse did restrain.

To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,

    But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.

Both are increased by such songs,

    For both their triumphs so are published,

And I, which was two fools, do so grow three;

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

The bitterest poem, I think, is this one. Bonus points for using legal language, and getting a dig in at, well, just about everyone.

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

   Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath

   Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;

   If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;

   My tongue to Fame ; to ambassadors mine ears ;

           To women, or the sea, my tears ;

       Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore

   By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

   My constancy I to the planets give ;

   My truth to them who at the court do live ;

   My ingenuity and openness,

   To Jesuits ; to buffoons my pensiveness ;

   My silence to any, who abroad hath been ;

           My money to a Capuchin :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me

   To love there, where no love received can be,

Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

   My faith I give to Roman Catholics ;

   All my good works unto the Schismatics

   Of Amsterdam ; my best civility

   And courtship to an University ;

   My modesty I give to soldiers bare ;

           My patience let gamesters share :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

   Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

   I give my reputation to those

   Which were my friends ; mine industry to foes ;

   To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness ;

   My sickness to physicians, or excess ;

   To nature all that I in rhyme have writ ;

           And to my company my wit :

       Thou, Love, by making me adore

   Her, who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

   To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,

   I give my physic books ; my written rolls

   Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give ;

   My brazen medals unto them which live

   In want of bread ; to them which pass among

           All foreigners, mine English tongue :

       Though, Love, by making me love one

   Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

   Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

   The world by dying, because love dies too.

   Then all your beauties will be no more worth

   Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth ;

   And all your graces no more use shall have,

           Than a sun-dial in a grave :

       Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me

   Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

There are a number of quotable lines from several of the poems, although the entire poems are worthwhile as well. The first stanza from “Break of Day” is memorable:

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Why should we rise because ‘tis light?

Did we lie down because ‘twas night?

Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,

Should in despite of light keep us together.

Also, the closing lines of “Love’s Growth,” a mediation on the evolution of a relationship, show that some things never change.

And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in time of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

This is one example of a conceit. After all, love isn’t much like ever-increasing taxation. But one one level, perhaps it is, and Donne leaves a memorable image.

Perhaps Donne’s best-known conceit, however, is his poem on attempted seduction, “The Flea.”

                                        

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

    Yet this enjoys before it woo,

    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

    And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.   

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;   

Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,   

And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

    Though use make you apt to kill me,

    Let not to that, self-murder added be,

    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?   

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?   

Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou   

Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

    ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:

    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

               
Others that I wish I had space to quote are “Lovers' Infiniteness,” which seems to reveal further layers of meaning each time I read it; and “The Broken Heart,” lacerating and raw. “The Anniversary” is also excellent, with its simultaneous celebration of a milestone, and premonitions of separation by death.

My personal favorite of the poems Donne wrote regarding the death of his wife is this one, which captures more of the grief, if less of the hope, than the more famous sonnet, “Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt.”

The Dissolution

She's dead; and all which die

To their first elements resolve;

And we were mutual elements to us,

And made of one another.

My body then doth hers involve,

And those things whereof I consist hereby

In me abundant grow, and burdenous,

And nourish not, but smother.

My fire of passion, sighs of air,

Water of tears, and earthly sad despair,

Which my materials be,

But near worn out by love's security,

She, to my loss, doth by her death repair.

And I might live long wretched so,

But that my fire doth with my fuel grow.

Now, as those active kings

Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,

Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break,

This —which I am amazed that I can speak—

This death, hath with my store

My use increased.

And so my soul, more earnestly released,

Will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before

A latter bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.

Finally, and on a lighter note, this next poem speaks to my ongoing and evolving conviction that the mystery of love has been supplanted in many with a veneration of commitment. Surely true love requires commitment, but commitment isn’t love, and can never replace it. (I discussed this in more depth in my review of Sonnets from the Portuguese.)

The Token

Send me some token, that my hope may live,

Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest;

Send me some honey to make sweet my hive,

That in my passions I may hope the best.

I beg no ribbon wrought with thine own hands,

To knit our loves in the fantastic strain

Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands

Of our affection, that as that's round and plain,

So should our loves meet in simplicity;

No, nor the corals which thy wrist enfold,

Laced up together in congruity,

To show our thoughts should rest in the same hold;

No, nor thy picture, though most gracious,

And most desired, because best like the best;

Nor witty lines, which are most copious,

Within the writings which thou hast addressed.

Send me nor this, nor that, to increase my store,

But swear thou think'st 'I love thee,' and no more.

Poems Written in Youth by William Wordsworth

Source of book: I own the complete Wordsworth - a gift from my friend Evalyn

For those familiar with my Poetry Project, it will come as no surprise that I have started my serious reading of Wordsworth at the beginning. In general, I have started with the early works of each poet, with the intent of working my way through the complete works in time.

The advantage of this approach is that there is insight to be gained by seeing the progression of the poet’s thoughts and ideas and skill.

The disadvantage is that I will be an old man by the time I reach the end of certain prolific poets like Tennyson, Frost, Auden - and Wordsworth. Either I need to read faster, or I will need a life “full of days” to complete this.

In any case, I cannot say I regret starting at the beginning with Wordsworth. Many of his important themes are apparent in a germinal state in these early works, and his style is already evident.

William Wordsworth has the distinction of having one of the best names of all time, perfectly suited to his profession, and euphonious. He is considered one of the most important poets of the English Romantic Era (along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and thoroughly embodies its values: intuition rather than reason, pristine nature rather than modern man. It was essentially a reaction against The Enlightenment and its values, which the Romantics considered sterile and impersonal.

I find the contrast interesting as a musician in its musical parallel. Music of the era tended to lag literature and philosophy in time, so that the musical Romantic Era postdated the poetic Romantic Era by a generation or so. The contrast here would be Mozart (Enlightenment Era) and Liszt (Romantic Era). In literature and music, it is easy to oversimplify. The poets and composers of the earlier era were capable of great emotion, and those of the latter were not lacking in cerebral ability, but the perceptions and goals were largely in line with the ideas of each era. For those reading on my blog, I have appended a note and some musical clips to illustrate the differences.

It was also interesting to me that the Romantic Poets were originally criticized for writing poetry in natural language rather than the formal and exalted language popular in the preceding era. To our modern ears, Wordsworth’s language may sound outdated and rather formal itself, but it was revolutionary in its time.

An early sonnet, written when Wordsworth was merely sixteen already shows an introverted concern with nature, and a leaning toward natural language devoid of classical allusions.

Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.

The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;

The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,

Is cropping audibly his later meal:

Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal

O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.

Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,

Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal

That grief for which the senses still supply

Fresh food; for only then, when memory

Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain

Those busy cares that would allay my pain;

Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel

The officious touch that makes me droop again.    

                    

This Italian sonnet form is adapted in a completely different way than the earlier Milton, or the later Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (For discussion of the sonnet forms, see my blog here.)

Also enjoyable from this collection is the long narrative, An Evening Walk. The poet describes a memorable evening stroll in the Lake District of England, which is particularly associated with Wordsworth and a few other poets of the era. I loved his description of the sunset.

How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view

The spacious landscape change in form and hue!

Here, vanish, as in mist, before a flood

Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood;

There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed,

Come forth, and here retire in purple shade;

Even the white stems of birch, the cottage white,

Soften their glare before the mellow light;

The skiffs, at anchor where with umbrage wide

Yon chestnuts half the latticed boat-house hide,

Shed from their sides, that face the sun's slant beam,

Strong flakes of radiance on the tremulous stream:

Raised by yon travelling flock, a dusty cloud

Mounts from the road, and spreads its moving shroud;

The shepherd, all involved in wreaths of fire,

Now shows a shadowy speck, and now is lost entire.

Wordsworth uses here, as in many other poems, iambic pentameter grouped into rhymed couplets, although they are not always limited to a single sentence or thought, as in the heroic couplet form.

Another enjoyable description is found in the short poem "Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening."

How rich the wave, in front, imprest

With evening twilights summer hues,

While, facing thus the crimson west,

The boat her silent path pursues!

And see how dark the backward stream!

A little moment past, so smiling!

And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,

Some other loiterer beguiling.

Such views the youthful bard allure,

But, heedless of the following gloom,

He deems their colours shall endure

'Till peace go with him to the tomb.

--And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow!

Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,

Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?

Wordsworth here also shows the undercurrent of melancholy which flows through many of his works.

Another theme which was popularized during the romantic era was the idea of the “Noble Savage”, the supposedly ideal state of man before the advent of modern technology and thought. In his long description of a journey through the Alps, (Taken During a Pedestrian Tour Among the Alps) Wordsworth expresses the idea as well as any textbook.

Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild,

Was blest as free--for he was Nature's child.

He, all superior but his God disdained,

Walked none restraining, and by none restrained

Confessed no law but what his reason taught,

Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.

As man in his primeval dower arrayed

The image of his glorious Sire displayed,                     

Even so, by faithful Nature guarded, here

The traces of primeval Man appear;

The simple dignity no forms debase;

The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace:

The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,

His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword;

Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared

With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard."

This idea, that mankind would be better if left alone to nature and itself, has been proven to be ludicrous, but it lingers on. (Murder and rape rates, for example, are highest in the most “primitive” cultures, and lowest in modern civilizations. The reality is opposite to the perception.) Thus, we glorify and fetishize the Native Americans for their supposed communion with nature, while ignoring their mass slaughter of the bison. We still claim an affinity with tribal Africa, although none of us would really wish to live in a time and place where brutal tribal rape and genocide is considered the normal state of affairs. Still, Wordsworth’s chimera holds its attraction today, and has become part of the cultural fabric.

On the other hand, Wordsworth expresses a timeless truth in a beautiful poem inspired by an inscription on an ancient yew tree by a lake in “Lines: Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect,” which ends as follows:

If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms

Of young imagination have kept pure,

Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride,           

Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,

Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties

Which he has never used; that thought with him

Is in its infancy. The man whose eye

Is ever on himself doth look on one,

The least of Nature's works, one who might move

The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds

Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, Thou!

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love;                  

True dignity abides with him alone

Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,

Can still suspect, and still revere himself

In lowliness of heart.

I will also mention Guilt and Sorrow, another long narrative poem telling a rather melodramatic story of a soldier who in anger commits a murder and faces the consequences long afterward. The stanza form for that poem interests me, being a nine line stanza, iambic pentameter rhymed as ABABBCBCC. Although our modern ears seem to prefer a certain cynicism and distance, there is still something moving about unabashed emotion, told in a straightforward and sympathetic manner.

Although there are a few moments in Wordsworth’s works where I find myself thinking, “Oh brother!”, in my modern way, there is much to love and enjoy. In some ways, Wordsworth himself is as he aspires to be: the noble savage seeing nature without the veneer of jaded modernity and with the childlike fascination with the beauty of life and nature untainted. This ideal may not be found in any particular time and place, but it can be found in each and every one of us, as we choose to rise above the cynical concerns of our everyday life, and view the wonders of creation and existence with awe and love. 

Note on Music:

Those who know me know that I am fascinated by the intersection of music with other arts and sciences. At its core, music seeks to express emotional truth in a way that other media cannot. Too often, we think of Mozart and the Enlightenment as cerebral and stilted, completely out of date. While the music of the late Eighteenth Century may not yield its emotion as easily as some popular music, there is a depth that can be plumbed with a little time and effort.

Interestingly, there is a difference between music and literature in a crucial way. The Romantic poets valued introversion over extroversion, and sought a more personal expression. In music, the Enlightenment composers were the more introverted. Mozart’s emotion, for example, must be sought out because it is beneath the surface. The romantic composers, in contrast, went for broad effects, with the emotion at the surface, while the poets focused inwardly.

Mozart: One of his most famous sonatas. Perfect balance, impeccable structure, and a restrained beauty. The emotion is there, but carefully kept in check. 
 
 

Liszt: A total contrast in mood and emotion. Here, the drama is easily apparent, but the structure is hidden. This one is amazing when performed live, if you ever get the chance to hear it that way.