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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning            
by John Donne                        

As virtuous men pass mildly away, 
    And whisper to their souls to go, 
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
    "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,                                  
    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys 
    To tell the laity our love. 

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
    Men reckon what it did, and meant ;                           
But trepidation of the spheres, 
    Though greater far, is innocent. 

Dull sublunary lovers' love 
    —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit 
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove                                   
    The thing which elemented it. 

But we by a love so much refined,
    That ourselves know not what it is, 
Inter-assurèd of the mind, 
    Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.                       

Our two souls therefore, which are one, 
    Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 
    Like gold to aery thinness beat. 

If they be two, they are two so                                          
    As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show 
    To move, but doth, if th' other do. 

And though it in the centre sit, 
    Yet, when the other far doth roam,                                
It leans, and hearkens after it, 
    And grows erect, as that comes home. 

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
    Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,                                   
    And makes me end where I begun.

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Jonella Jonella

The Infinities

The Infinities
by John Banville

"What casuistries they are capable of, even the simplest-minded among them, what fine distinctions and discriminations they devise!  This is what we never cease to marvel at, the mountains they make out of the molehills of their passions, while all the time their real, their savage, selves are crouched in hiding behind those outcrops, scanning the surrounds for danger or opportunity, for predators or prey."

 

Two days ago I'd never heard of John Banville. After reading this passage I think I'd better pickup a copy.

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Poetry Jonella Poetry Jonella

Sonnet to Sleep

Sonnet to Sleep
John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
   Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
   Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
   In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the Amen ere thy poppy throws
   Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me or the passed day will shine
   Upon my pillow, breeding many woes:
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
   Its strength for darkness, burrowing like the mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
   And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

 

 

soothest = softest
curious = scrupulous
wards = the ridges in a lock that correspond to a key

 

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