A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, being the Short
The speaker marks the winter solstice, calling it midnight of both the year and the day, the feast of Lucy, who herself unmasks scarcely seven hours. The sun is spent, sending forth only weak light squibs rather than constant rays; the world's whole sap is sunk, and the general balm the hydroptic earth has drunk has shrunk life down to the bed's-feet, dead and interred. Yet the speaker declares all these things seem to laugh compared with himself, who is their epitaph. He addresses those who shall be lovers at the next spring, telling them to study him, for he is a very dead thing, in whom Love wrought a new alchemy. Love's art expressed a quintessence even from nothingness, from dull privations and lean emptiness; Love ruined him, and he has been re-begotten of absence, darkness, and death-things which are not. He explains that while all others draw all that's good, life, soul, form, and spirit, from all things, he, by Love's limbec, is the grave of all that's nothing. He recalls that he and another have often wept a flood, drowning the whole world, the two of them; that they often grew to be two chaoses when they showed care to anything else; and that often absences withdrew their souls and made them carcasses. He states that he is, by her death, grown the elixir of the first nothing, adding that the word wrongs her. Were he a man, he would need to know that he was one; were he any beast, he would prefer some ends, some means; even plants, even stones detest and love, all things invest some properties. If he were an ordinary nothing, some shadow, light, and body would need to be present. But he is none of these, nor will his sun renew. He turns to address lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun has at this time run to the Goat to fetch new lust and give it to them; he tells them to enjoy their summer, since she enjoys her long night's festival. He resolves to prepare himself towards her, calling this hour her vigil and her eve, since this is the deep midnight of both the year and the day.
By John Donne · First published 1633 · Genre: Metaphysical Poetry, Elegiac Poetry, Love Poetry · 548 words
First lines
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's, / Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks; / The sun is spent, and now his flasks / Send forth light squibs, no constant rays; / The world's whole sap is sunk; / The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk, / Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk, / Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh, / Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
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A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, being the Shortest Day is listed on Textopian as a poem by John Donne, dated 1633 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: John Donne
- Date: 1633 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Metaphysical Poetry, Elegiac Poetry, Love Poetry, Devotional Poetry, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 548 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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Genres
- Metaphysical Poetry — Exemplifies metaphysical style through elaborate conceits (love as alchemical transformation, lover as grave), intellectual wit, paradoxical logic about absence and nothingness, and philosophical exploration of love and death through complex frameworks.
- Elegiac Poetry — Functions as formal elegy mourning beloved's death, employing conventions of lamentation and expressing profound grief through meditation on absence, death, and the speaker's annihilated state of being.
- Love Poetry — Centers on romantic love's transformative and destructive power, using the beloved and speaker's passion as primary subject while exploring how love fundamentally alters identity and existence.
- Devotional Poetry — Anchored to St. Lucy's Day (saint's feast day), incorporates religious meditation and spiritual imagery to explore transcendent themes of absence, death, and transformation within a devotional framework.
Tags
metaphysical · melancholic · introspective · darkness · love · absence · loss · winter · astronomical · philosophical · religious · baroque