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

Letters to Several Personages

To the Countess of Bedford

MADAM—
You have refined me, and to worthiest things—

Virtue, art, beauty, fortune. Now I see

Rareness or use, not nature, value brings;

And such, as they are circumstanced, they be.

Two ills can ne’er perplex us, sin to excuse;

But of two good things we may leave and choose.

Therefore at court—which is not virtue’s clime,

Where a transcendent height (as lowness me)

Makes her not be, or not show—all my rhyme

Your virtues challenge, which there rarest be;

For, as dark texts need notes, there some must be

To usher Virtue, and say, “This is she.”

So in the country ’s beauty. To this place

You are the season, Madam, you the day;

’Tis but a grave of spices, till your face

Exhale them, and a thick close bud display;

Widow’d and reclused else, her sweets she enshrines

As China, when the sun at Brazil dines.

Out from your chariot morning breaks at night,

And falsifies both computations; so,

Since a new world doth rise here from your light,

We, your new creatures, by new reckonings go.

This shows that you from nature lothly stray,

That suffer not an artificial day.

In this you’ve made the court th’ antipodes,

And will’d your delegate, the vulgar sun,

To do profane autumnal offices,

Whilst here to you we sacrificers run;

And whether priests or organs, you we obey;

We sound your influence, and your dictates say.

Yet to that deity which dwells in you,

Your virtuous soul, I now not sacrifice;

These are petitions and not hymns; they sue

But that I may survey the edifice;

In all religions as much care hath been

Of temples’ frames and beauty, as rites within.

As all which go to Rome do not thereby

Esteem religions, and hold fast the best,

But serve discourse and curiosity,

With that which doth religion but invest;

And shun th’ entangling labyrinths of schools,

And make it wit, to think the wiser fools;

So in this pilgrimage I would behold

You as you’re Virtue’s temple, not as she;

What walls of tender crystal her enfold,

What eyes, hands, bosom, her pure altars be;

And after this survey, oppose to all

Babblers of chapels, you, th’ Escurial.

Yet not as consecrate, but merely as fair;

On these I cast a lay and country eye.

Of past and future stories, which are rare,

I find you all record and prophecy.

Purge but the book of Fate, that it admit

No sad nor guilty legends—you are it.

If good and lovely were not one, of both

You were the transcript and original,

The elements, the parent, and the growth;

And every piece of you is both their all;

So entire are all your deeds, and you, that you

Must do the same things still; you cannot two.

But these—as nice thin school divinity

Serves heresy to further or repress—

Taste of poetic rage, or flattery;

And need not, where all hearts one truth profess.

Oft from new proofs, and new phrase, new doubts grow,

As strange attire aliens the men we know.

Leaving then busy praise and all appeal

To higher courts, sense’s decree is true.

The mine, the magazine, the common-weal,

The story of beauty, in Twickenham is, and you.

Who hath seen one, would both; as, who had been

In Paradise, would seek the cherubin.