Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

John Donne (1572–1631)

Song: ‘Go and catch a falling star’

GO and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all times past are,

Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’st born to strange sights,

Things invisible go see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights

Till age snow white hairs on thee;

Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find’st one let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true when you met her,

And last, when you wrote your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.