Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

John Donne (1572–1631)

From Verses to Sir Henry Wootton

BE then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;

Inn anywhere; continuance maketh Hell.

And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,

Carrying his own house still, is still at home:

Follow (for he ’s easy pac’d) this snail,

Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.

But in the world’s sea do not like cork sleep

Upon the water’s face, nor in the deep

Sink like a lead without a line: but as

Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,

Nor making sound, so closely thy course go;

Let men dispute whether thou breathe or no:

Only in this be no Galenist. To make

Court’s hot ambitions wholesome, do not take

A dram of country’s dulness; do not add

Correctives, but as chymics purge the bad.

But, sir, I advise not you, I rather do

Say o’er those lessons which I learn’d of you:

Whom, free from Germany’s schisms, and lightness

Of France, and fair Italie’s faithlessness,

Having from these suck’d all they had of worth

And brought home that faith which you carry’d forth,

I throughly love: but if myself I’ve won

To know my rules, I have, and you have, Donne.