T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
An Elegy
By John Donne (1572–1631)| NATURE’S lay idiot, I taught thee to love, | |
| And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove | |
| Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand | |
| The mystic language of the eye nor hand; | |
| Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air | 5 |
| Or sighs, and say, “This lies, this sounds despair”; | |
| Nor by th’ eye’s water cast a malady | |
| Desperately hot, or changing feverously. | |
| I had not taught thee then the alphabet | |
| Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set | 10 |
| And bound up, might with speechless secrecy | |
| Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. | |
| Remember since all thy words used to be | |
| To every suitor, “Ay, if my friends agree”; | |
| Since household charms, thy husband’s name to teach, | 15 |
| Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach | |
| And since an hour’s discourse could scarce have made | |
| One answer in thee, and that ill array’d | |
| In broken proverb, and torn sentences. | |
| Thou art not by so many duties his— | 20 |
| That from th’ world’s common having sever’d thee, | |
| Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see— | |
| As mine; who have with amorous delicacies | |
| Refined thee into a blissful paradise. | |
| Thy graces and good works my creatures be; | 25 |
| I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee; | |
| Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas! | |
| Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? | |
| Chafe wax for other’s seals? break a colt’s force, | |
| And leave him then, being made a ready horse? | 30 |