The Poems of John Donne, Volume 2 (of 2): Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous ManuscriptsDonne, John
General
The Poems of John Donne, Volume 2 (of 2): Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts
Donne, John
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
What two brave perills of the private sword
Could not effect, not all the furies doe,
That selfe-devided _Belgia_ did afford;
What not the envie of the seas reach'd too,
The cold of _Mosco_, and fat _Irish_ ayre,
His often change of clime (though not of mind)
What could not worke; at home in his repaire
Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.
Which shewes, where ever death doth please t' appeare,
Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sicknesse, all are there.
In his conversations with Drummond Jonson as usual gave more intimate
and less complimentary details: 'Sir John Roe was an infinite spender,
and used to say, when he had no more to spend he could die. He died
in his (i.e. Jonson's) arms of the pest, and he furnished his charges
20lb., which was given him back,' doubtless by his brother William.
Morant states that 'Sir John the eldest son, having no issue, sold
this Manor (i.e. Higham-hill) to his father-in-law Sir Reginald
Argall, of whom it was purchased by the second son--Sir William Rowe'.
Such a career is much more likely than Donne's to have produced the
satire 'Sleep, next Society', with its lurid picture of cashiered
captains, taverns, stews, duellists, hard drinkers, and parasites.
It is much more like a scene out of _Bartholomew Fair_ than any of
Donne's five _Satyres_. Nor was Donne likely at any time to have
written of James I as Roe does. He moved in higher circles, and was
more politic. But Roe had ability. 'Deare Love, continue nice and
chaste' is not quite in the taste of to-day, but it is a good example
of the paradoxical, metaphysical lyric; and there are both feeling
and wit in 'Come, Fates; I feare you not', unlike as it is to Donne's
subtle, erudite, intenser strain.
Returning to the list of poems open to question on pp. cxxviii-ix we
have sixteen left to consider. Of some of these there is very little
to say.
Nos. 1 and 14 are most probably by the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl
of Pembroke collaborating with Sir Benjamin Rudyard. Both were wits
and poets of Donne's circle. The first song,
'Soules joy, now I am gone'
is ascribed to Donne only in _1635-69_, and is there inaccurately
printed. It is assigned to Pembroke in the younger Donne's edition
of Pembroke and Ruddier's _Poems_ (1660), a bad witness, but also
by Lansdowne MS. 777, which Mr. Chambers justly calls 'a very good
authority'.[14] The latter, however, believes the poem to be Donne's
because the central idea--the inseparableness of souls--is his, and so
is the contemptuous tone of
Fooles have no meanes to meet,
But by their feet.
But both the contemptuous tone and the Platonic thought were growing
common. We get it again in Lovelace's
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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