home | index | concordance | composite list of variants | help |
[Transcriptions are not provided for noncanonical poems,
elegies on Donne by other authors, or prose compositions.]
Eleg. XIIII.
His parting from her.
Since she must goe, and I must mourne, come night
Environ me with darknesse, whilst I write:
Shadow that hell unto me, which alone
I am to suffer when my soule is gone.
Have we for this kept guards, like spie o'r Spie?
Had correspondence whilst the foe stood by?
Stolne (more to sweeten them) our many blisses
Of meetings, conference, imbracements, kisses?
Shadow'd with negligence our most respects?
Varied our language through all dialects
Of becks, winkes, lookes, and often under boards
Spoake dialogues with our feet farre from words?
Have we prov'd all the secrets of our Art,
Yea, thy pale inwards, and thy panting heart?
And, after all this passed Purgatory,
Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story?
Fortune, doe thy worst, my friend and I have armes,
Though not against thy strokes, against thy harmes.
Bend us, in sunder thou canst not divide
Our bodies so, but that our soules are ty'd,
And we can love by letters still and gifts,
And thoughts and dreames; Love never wanteth shifts.

[CW: I will]