Elegy on Mistress Boulstred by John Donne

Name: Elegy on Mistress Boulstred
Author: John Donne

Death is rebuked for its arrogant claim over all creation, its jaws consuming plants, cattle, and men across earth, sea, and air alike. The elegy questions how death could ever have begun, and observes that though God reclaims some from death's grasp, most are left to it. Among the few God reserves, death has now overthrown one whose blow reaches only her lower room, her body, while her nobler part remains beyond death's power. Her soul and body are likened to a king and court, and though death separates them, this is no divorce but a temporary parting, her soul ascending to usher up her corpse in turn. The poem laments that her virtues outran her years, asking why death could not have let her live to grow old, when age might have brought ambition, covetousness, or excessive devotion turning to superstition, and even her abundant virtue might have bred a proud delight. Had she lived on in justness, others might have sinned by misjudging her friendship as love, or by tempting her, or by silently wishing what they dared not say. In slaying her early, death has thus lost the chance to triumph further by causing others to sin through her. Yet one avenue remains open to death: the immoderate grief of those who mourn her. The living may escape that sin while still weeping as much, for their tears are owed precisely because they refuse to indulge excess. Her death costs her circle of friends some tears, since though the chain linking them is broken, no single link is lost.

By John Donne · First published 1635 · Genre: Elegy, Metaphysical Poetry, Religious Poetry · 971 words

First lines

Death I recant, and say, "Unsaid by me, / Whate'er hath slipp'd, that might diminish thee. / Spiritual treason, atheism" 'tis to say / That any can thy summons disobey. / Th' earth's face is but thy table; there are set / Plants, cattle, men, dishes for death to eat. / In a rude hunger now he millions draws / Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws. / Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste, / Eating the best first, well preserved to last. / Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not, / But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot. / Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep / Where harmless fish monastic silence keep; / Who-were Death dead-by roes of living sand / Might sponge that element, and make it land. / He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes / In birds', heaven's choristers, organic throats; / Which, if they did not die, might seem to be / A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy. / O strong and long-lived death, how camest thou in? / And how without creation didst begin? / Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest, / All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist. / How could I think thee nothing, that see now / In all this All nothing else is, but thou? / Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be / Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee. / For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath, / Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death. / And though thou be'st, O mighty bird of prey, / So much reclaim'd by God, that thou must lay / All that thou kill'st at His feet, yet doth He / Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee. / And of those few now thou hast overthrown / One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own. / She was more storeys high; hopeless to come / To her soul, thou hast offer'd at her lower room. / Her soul and body was a king and court; / But thou hast both of captain miss'd and fort. / As houses fall not, though the kings remove, / Bodies of saints rest for their souls above. / Death gets 'twixt souls and bodies such a place / As sin insinuates 'twixt just men and grace; / Both work a separation, no divorce. / Her soul is gone to usher up her corse, / Which shall be almost another soul-for there / Bodies are purer than best souls are here. / Because in her, her virtues did outgo / Her years, would'st thou, O emulous death, do so, / And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost / Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost? / What though thou found'st her proof 'gainst sins of youth? / O, every age a diverse sin pursueth. / Thou should'st have stayed, and taken better hold. / Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old, / She might have proved; and such devotion / Might once have stray'd to superstition. / If all her virtues must have grown, yet might / Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight. / Had she persever'd just, there would have been / Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin. / Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign / To sociableness, a name profane, / Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that, / By wishing, though they never told her what. / Thus mightst thou have slain more souls had'st thou not cross'd / Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost. / Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one, / Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone. / But we may 'scape that sin, yet weep as much; / Our tears are due because we are not such. / Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost, / Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.

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Elegy on Mistress Boulstred is listed on Textopian as a poem by John Donne, dated 1635 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: John Donne
Date: 1635 CE
Language: English
Genres: Elegy, Metaphysical Poetry, Religious Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Funeral Poetry
Length: 971 words
Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Elegy — The work is formally classified as an elegy, a lament for the dead, mourning the death of Mistress Boulstred through extended meditation on mortality and loss.
Metaphysical Poetry — Exemplifies Donne's metaphysical style with complex intellectual conceits, sophisticated argumentation, exploration of abstract concepts (death, virtue, soul), and witty paradoxes characteristic of the metaphysical poets.
Religious Poetry — Central to the work are religious and theological themes: sin, virtue, grace, the soul, God's dominion, monasticism, heaven, and the spiritual versus physical realms.
Philosophical Poetry — The poem functions as extended philosophical argument examining the nature of death, mortality, human virtue and vice, and the relationship between body and soul.