| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | The Primrose |
| | Being at Montgomery Castle upon the Hill, on Which It Is Situate |
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UPON this Primrose hill, | |
| Where, if heaven would distil | |
| A shower of rain, each several drop might go | |
| To his own primrose, and grow manna so; | |
| And where their form, and their infinity | 5 |
| Make a terrestrial galaxy, | |
| As the small stars do in the sky; | |
| I walk to find a true love; and I see | |
| That ’tis not a mere woman, that is she, | |
| But must or more or less than woman be. | 10 |
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| Yet know I not, which flower | |
| I wish; a six, or four; | |
| For should my true-love less than woman be, | |
| She were scarce anything; and then, should she | |
| Be more than woman, she would get above | 15 |
| All thought of sex, and think to move | |
| My heart to study her, and not to love. | |
| Both these were monsters; since there must reside | |
| Falsehood in woman, I could more abide, | |
| She were by art, than nature falsified. | 20 |
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| Live, primrose, then, and thrive | |
| With thy true number five; | |
| And, woman, whom this flower doth represent, | |
| With this mysterious number be content; | |
| Ten is the farthest number; if half ten | 25 |
| Belongs unto each woman, then | |
| Each woman may take half us men; | |
| Or—if this will not serve their turn 1—since all | |
| Numbers are odd, or even, and they fall 2 | |
| First into five, 3 women may take us all. | 30 |
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