English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 170. Sweetest Love, I do not Go |
| | | John Donne (1573–1631) |
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| SWEETEST love, I do not go | |
| For weariness of thee, | |
| Nor in hope the world can show | |
| A fitter love for me; | |
| But since that I | 5 |
| Must die at last, ’tis best | |
| Thus to use myself in jest, | |
| By feignèd death to die. | |
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| Yesternight the sun went hence, | |
| And yet is here to-day; | 10 |
| He hath no desire nor sense, | |
| Nor half so short a way. | |
| Then fear not me, | |
| But believe that I shall make | |
| Hastier journeys, since I take | 15 |
| More wings and spurs than he. | |
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| O how feeble is man’s power, | |
| That, if good fortune fall, | |
| Cannot add another hour, | |
| Nor a lost hour recall. | 20 |
| But come bad chance, | |
| And we join to it our strength, | |
| And we teach it art and length, | |
| Itself o’er us t’ advance. | |
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| When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st no wind, | 25 |
| But sigh’st my soul away; | |
| When thou weep’st, unkindly kind, | |
| My life’s blood doth decay. | |
| It cannot be | |
| That thou lov’st me as thou say’st, | 30 |
| If in thine my life thou waste, | |
| That art the best of me. | |
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| Let not thy divining heart | |
| Forethink me any ill. | |
| Destiny may take thy part | 35 |
| And may thy fears fulfil; | |
| But think that we | |
| Are but turned aside to sleep: | |
| They who one another keep | |
| Alive, ne’er parted be. | 40 |
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