Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

John Donne (1572–1631)

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

Great Love, some legacies; here I 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;

Mine 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 receiv’d 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 shoulders 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; my 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 did 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, my English tongue,

Thou, 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 on 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.