l. 24. _That since you would save none of me, I bury some of you._ I have hesitated a good deal over this line. The reading of the editions is 'have none of me'; and in the group of MSS. _D_, _H49_, _Lec_, while _H49_ reads 'save', _D_ has corrected 'have' to what _may_ be 'save', and _Lec_ reads 'have'. The reading of the editions is the full form of the construction, which is more common without the 'have'. 'It's four to one she'll none of me,' _Twelfth Night_, I. iii. 113; 'She will none of him,' Ibid. II. ii. 9, are among Schmidt's examples (_Shakespeare Lexicon_), in none of which 'have' occurs. The reading of the MSS., 'save none of me,' is also quite idiomatic, resembling the ' fear none of this' (i.e. 'do not fear this') of _Winter's Tale_, IV. iv. 601; and I have preferred it because: (1) It seems difficult to understand how it could have arisen if 'have none' was the original. (2) It gives a sharper antithesis, 'You would not save me, keep me alive. Therefore I will bury, not you indeed, but a part of you.' (3) To be saved is the lover's usual prayer; and the idea of the poem is that his death is due to the lady's cruelty. Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou go by. Compare also the Letter _To M^{rs} M. H._ (pp. 216-8), where the same idea recurs: When thou art there, if any, whom we know, Were sav'd before, and did that heaven partake, &c. PAGE =59=. THE BLOSSOME. l. 10. _labour'st._ The form with 't' occurs in most of the MSS., and 't' is restored in _1635_. The 'labours' of _1633_ represents a common dropping of the 't' for ease of pronunciation. See Franz, _Shakespeare-Grammatik_, § 152. It is colloquial, and I doubt if Donne would have preserved it if he had printed the poem, supposing that he wrote the word so, and not some copyist. ll. 21-4. _You goe to friends, whose love and meanes present Various content To your eyes, eares, and tongue, and every part: If then your body goe, what need you a heart?_ I have adopted the MS. readings 'tongue' and 'what need you a heart?' because they seem to me more certainly what Donne wrote. He may have altered them, but so may an editor. 'Tongue' is more exactly parallel to eyes and ears, and the whole talk is of organs. 'What need you a heart?' is more pointed. 'With these organs of sense, what need have you of a heart?' The idiom was not uncommon, the verb being used impersonally. The O.E.D. gives among others: What need us so many instances abroad. _Andros Tracts_, 1691. 'What need your heart go' is of course also idiomatic. The latest example the O.E.D. gives is from Hall's _Satires_, 1597: 'What needs me care for any bookish skill?' PAGE =61=. THE PRIMROSE, &c.