Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ELEGIE: DEATH, by JOHN DONNE


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ELEGIE: DEATH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Language thou art too narrow, and too weake
Last Line: Of griefe, for all would waste a stoicks heart.
Variant Title(s): An Elegy Upon The Death Of Mistress Bulstrode


Language thou art too narrow, and too weake
To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake;
If we could sigh out accents, and weepe words,
Griefe weares, and lessens, that tears breath affords.
Sad hearts, the lesse they seeme the more they are,
(So guiltiest men stand mutest at the barre)
Not that they know not, feele not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate.
Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we bee;
Tyrant, in the fift and greatest Monarchy,
Was't, that she did possesse all hearts before,
Thou hast kil'd her, to make thy Empire more?
Knew'st thou some would, that knew her not, lament,
As in a deluge perish th'innocent?
Was't not enough to have that palace wonne,
But thou must raze it too, that was undone?
Had'st thou staid there, and look'd out at her eyes,
All had ador'd thee that now from thee flies,
For they let out more light, then they tooke in,
They told not when, but did the day beginne.
She was too Saphirine, and cleare for thee;
Clay, flint, and jeat now thy fit dwellings be;
Alas, shee was too pure, but not too weake;
Who e'r saw Christall Ordinance but would break?
And if wee be thy conquest, by her fall
Th'hast lost thy end, for in her perish all;
Or if we live, we live but to rebell,
They know her better now, that knew her well.
If we should vapour out, and pine, and die;
Since, shee first went, that were not miserie.
Shee chang'd our world with hers; now she is gone,
Mirth and prosperity is oppression;
For of all morall vertues she was all,
The Ethicks speake of vertues Cardinall.
Her soule was Paradise; the Cherubin
Set to keepe it was grace, that kept out sinne.
Shee had no more then let in death, for wee
All reape consumption from one fruitfull tree.
God tooke her hence, lest some of us should love
Her, like that plant, him and his lawes above,
And when wee teares, hee mercy shed in this,
To raise our mindes to heaven where now she is;
Who if her vertues would have let her stay
Wee'had had a Saint, have now a holiday.
Her heart was that strange bush, where, sacred fire,
Religion, did not consume, but'inspire
Such piety, so chast use of Gods day,
That what we turne to feast, she turn'd to pray,
And did prefigure here, in devout tast,
The rest of her high Sabaoth, which shall last.
Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell,
(For she was of that order whence most fell)
Her body left with us, lest some had said,
Shee could not die, except they saw her dead;
For from lesse vertue, and lesse beautiousnesse,
The Gentiles fram'd them Gods and Goddesses.
The ravenous earth that now wooes her to be
Earth too, will be a Lemnia; and the tree
That wraps that christall in a wooden Tombe,
Shall be tooke up spruce, fill'd with diamond;
And we her sad glad friends all beare a part
Of griefe, for all would waste a Stoicks heart.





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