| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Elegies | | III. Change |
| | | ALTHOUGH thy hand and faith, and good works 1 too, | |
| Have seal’d thy love which nothing should undo, | |
| Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy | |
| Confirm 2 thy love, yet much, much I fear thee. | |
| Women are like the arts, forced unto none, | 5 |
| Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown. | |
| If I have caught a bird, and let him fly, | |
| Another fowler using these 3 means, as I, | |
| May catch the same bird; and, as these things be, | |
| Women are made for men, not him nor me. | 10 |
| Foxes, and goats—all beasts 4—change when they please. | |
| Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these, | |
| Be bound to one man, and did nature 5 then | |
| Idly make them apter to endure than men? | |
| They’re our clogs, not their own; if a man be | 15 |
| Chain’d to a galley, yet the galley’s free. | |
| Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed corn there, | |
| And yet allows his ground more corn should bear; | |
| Though Danuby into the sea must flow, | |
| The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po. | 20 |
| By nature, which gave it, this liberty | |
| Thou lovest, but O! canst thou love it and me? | |
| Likeness glues love; and if that thou so do, | |
| To make us like and love, must I change too? | |
| More than thy hate, I hate it; rather let me | 25 |
| Allow her change, then change as oft as she, | |
| And so not teach, but force my opinion, | |
| To love not any one, nor every one. | |
| To live in one land is captivity, | |
| To run all countries a wild roguery. | 30 |
| Waters stink soon, if in one place they bide, 6 | |
| And in the vast sea are more putrified; 7 | |
| But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this | |
| Never look back, but the next bank do kiss, | |
| Then are they purest; change is the nursery | 35 |
| Of music, joy, life, and eternity. | |
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