English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 169. Song |
| | | John Donne (1573–1631) |
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| GO and catch a falling star, | |
| Get with child a mandrake root, | |
| Tell me where all past hours are, | |
| Or who cleft the Devil’s foot; | |
| Teach me to hear mermaids singing, | 5 |
| Or to keep off envy’s stinging, | |
| Or find | |
| What wind | |
| Serves to advance an honest mind. | |
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| If thou be’st born to strange sights, | 10 |
| Things invisible go see, | |
| Ride ten thousand days and nights, | |
| Till age snow white hairs on thee. | |
| Thou at thy return wilt tell me | |
| All strange wonders that befell thee, | 15 |
| And swear, | |
| No where | |
| Lives a woman true and fair. | |
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| If thou find’st one, let me know, | |
| Such a pilgrimage were sweet; | 20 |
| Yet do not, I would not go, | |
| Though at next door we should meet. | |
| Though she were true when you met her, | |
| And last till you write your letter, | |
| Yet she | 25 |
| Will be | |
| False, ere I come, to two or three. | |
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