Nature's Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee to Love

Name: Nature's Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee to Love
Author: John Donne

A woman who once had no understanding of love learns, through the speaker's teaching, to master it too well. She could not once read the "mystic language" of eyes and hands, distinguish a false sigh from real despair, or diagnose the fevers of desire in a watering eye; nor did she know the secret "alphabet" of flowers, by which arranged and bound blossoms silently carry messages between lovers. The speaker recalls how, before this instruction, all her answers to suitors were the same deferral—"Ay, if my friends agree"—and her only domestic skill was learning her husband's name through household routines; a whole hour's conversation could hardly draw one reply from her, and that reply came out badly, patched together from broken proverbs and torn sentences. Now, the speaker says, she is bound by so many debts to him that she has been set apart from common possession by the world—enclosed, neither seeing others nor being seen by them—as belonging to him alone, since he has refined her with amorous delicacies into a blissful paradise. Her graces and good works are his creations; he planted knowledge and the tree of life in her. He then asks, with anguish, whether strangers are now to taste what he cultivated: must he be the one to fashion and enamel plate only for others to drink from it in glass, to chafe wax for other men's seals, or to break a colt to the saddle only to hand over the trained horse to someone else.

By John Donne · First published 1633 · Genre: Metaphysical Poetry, Love Poetry, Dramatic Monologue · 379 words

First lines

Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love, / And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove / Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand / The mystic language of the eye nor hand; / Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air / Of sighs, and say, "This lies, this sounds despair"; / Nor by th' eye's water cast a malady / Desperately hot, or changing feverously. / I had not taught thee then the alphabet / Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set / And bound up, might with speechless secrecy / Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. / Remember since all thy words used to be / To every suitor, "Ay, if my friends agree; " / Since household charms, thy husband's name to teach, / Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach; / And since an hour's discourse could scarce have made / One answer in thee, and that ill array'd / In broken proverbs, and torn sentences. / Thou art not by so many duties his- / That from th' world's common having sever'd thee, / Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see- / As mine; who have with amorous delicacies / Refined thee into a blissful paradise. / Thy graces and good works my creatures be; / I planted knowledge and life's tree in thee; / Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas! / Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? / Chafe wax for other's seals? break a colt's force, / And leave him then, being made a ready horse?

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Nature's Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee to Love 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, Love Poetry, Dramatic Monologue, Erotic Poetry, Didactic Poetry
Length: 379 words
Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Metaphysical Poetry — Donne's signature style of complex conceits and philosophical depth; intricate imagery of eyes, flowers, and knowledge as vehicles for exploring love's mysteries and intellectual complications.
Love Poetry — Addresses the central theme of instruction and refinement in romantic love, exploring the dynamics between lover and beloved with intimate emotional stakes.
Dramatic Monologue — Structured as a one-sided address to an unnamed recipient, revealing the speaker's psychology, resentment, and proprietary claims through direct discourse.
Erotic Poetry — Underlying sexual jealousy, possessiveness, and sensual refinement permeate the work; the speaker's jealous questioning of 'strangers' tasting forbidden fruit suggests erotic anxiety.