Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.
By. John DonneSong
G
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all years past are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaid’s singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find,
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
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,
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.
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 till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.