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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  12. A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

John Donne (1573–1631)

12. A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany

IN what torne ship soever I embarke,

That ship shall be my embleme of thy Arke;

What sea soever swallow mee, that flood

Shall be to mee an embleme of thy blood;

Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise

Thy face; yet through that maske I know those eyes,

Which, though they turne away sometimes,

They never will despise.

I sacrifice this Iland unto thee,

And all whom I lov’d there, and who lov’d mee;

When I have put our seas twixt them and mee,

Put thou thy sea betwixt my sinnes and thee.

As the trees sap doth seeke the root below

In winter, in my winter now I goe,

Where none but thee, th’Eternall root

Of true Love I may know.

Nor thou nor thy religion dost controule,

The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule,

But thou would’st have that love thy selfe: As thou

Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,

That lov’st not, till from loving more, thou free

My soule: Who ever gives, takes libertie:

O, if thou car’st not whom I love

Alas, thou lov’st not mee.

Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All,

On whom those fainter beames of love did fall;

Marry those loves, which in youth scattered bee

On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee.

Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:

To see God only, I goe out of sight:

And to scape stormy dayes, I chuse

An Everlasting night