Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN HYMN TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUESSE HAMYLTON, by JOHN DONNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN HYMN TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUESSE HAMYLTON, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Whether that soule which now comes up to you
Last Line: Wish him a david, her a magdalen.


Whether that soule which now comes up to you
Fill any former ranke or make a new;
Whether it take a name nam'd there before,
Or be a name it selfe, and order more
Then was in heaven till now; (for may not hee
Bee so, if every severall Angell bee
A kind alone?) What ever order grow
Greater by him in heaven, wee doe not so.
One of your orders growes by his accesse;
But, by his losse grow all our orders lesse;
The name of Father, Master, Friend, the name
Of Subject and of Prince, in one are lame;
Faire mirth is dampt, and conversation black,
The household widdow'd, and the garter slack;
The Chappell wants an eare, Councell a tongue;
Story, a theame; and Musicke lacks a song;
Blest order that hath him! the losse of him
Gangreend all Orders here; all lost a limbe.
Never made body such hast to confesse
What a soule was; All former comelinesse
Fled, in a minute, when the soule was gone,
And, having lost that beauty, would have none;
So fell our Monasteries, in one instant growne
Not to lesse houses, but, to heapes of stone;
So sent this body that faire forme it wore,
Unto the spheare of formes, and doth (before
His soule shall fill up his sepulchrall stone,)
Anticipate a Resurrection;
For, as in his fame, now, his soule is here,
So, in the forme thereof his bodie's there.
And if, faire soule, not with first Innocents
Thy station be, but with the Poenitents,
(And, who shall dare to aske then when I am
Dy'd scarlet in the blood of that pure Lambe,
Whether that colour, which is scarlet then,
Were black or white before in eyes of men?)
When thou rememb'rest what sins thou didst finde
Amongst those many friends now left behinde,
And seest such sinners as they are, with thee
Got thither by repentance, Let it bee
Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them cleane;
Wish him a David, her a Magdalen.





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