| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | A Fever |
| | | O! DO not die, for I shall hate | |
| All women so, when thou art gone, | |
| That thee I shall not celebrate, | |
| When I remember thou wast one. | |
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| But yet thou canst not die, I know; | 5 |
| To leave this world behind, is death; | |
| But when thou from this world wilt go, | |
| The whole world vapours with thy breath. 1 | |
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| Or if, when thou, the world’s soul, go’st, | |
| It stay, ’tis but thy carcase then; | 10 |
| The fairest woman, but thy ghost, | |
| But corrupt worms, the worthiest men. | |
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| O wrangling schools, that search what fire | |
| Shall burn this world, had none the wit | |
| Unto this knowledge to aspire, | 15 |
| That this her fever might be it? | |
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| And yet she cannot waste by this, | |
| Nor long bear 2 this torturing wrong, | |
| For more corruption needful is, | |
| To fuel such a fever long. | 20 |
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| These burning fits but meteors be, | |
| Whose matter in thee is soon 3 spent; | |
| Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee, | |
| Are 4 unchangeable firmament. | |
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| Yet ’twas of 5 my mind, seizing thee, | 25 |
| Though it in thee cannot perséver; | |
| For 6 I had rather owner be | |
| Of thee one hour, than all else ever. | |
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