Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896.

Songs and Sonnets

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath

Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;

My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;

To women or the sea, my tears:

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore

By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;

Mine ingenuity and openness,

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;

My silence to any, who abroad hath been;

My money to a Capuchin:

Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me

To love there, where no love received can be,

Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

All my good works unto the Schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to an University;

My modesty I give to soldiers bare;

My patience let gamesters share:

Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me

Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To nature all that I in rhyme have writ;

And to my company my wit:

Thou, Love, by making me adore

Her, who begot this love in me before,

Taught’st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,

I give my physic books; my written rolls

Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among

All foreigners, mine English tongue:

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I’ll give no more, but I’ll undo

The world by dying, because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth;

And all your graces no more use shall have,

Than a sun-dial in a grave:

Thou, Love, taught’st me by making me

Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.