The Blossom by John Donne (1633)

Name: The Blossom
Author: John Donne

A speaker has watched a flower for six or seven days, seeing it born and grow, and now sees it laughing and triumphing on its bough, unaware that it will freeze that night and be found fallen, or gone entirely, by morning. He turns to his own heart, which lingers hoping to nestle and gain a place in a tree that is forbidden or forbidding, hoping to bow the woman's stiffness through long siege — not knowing that it too must, before the next sunrise, take a journey with the sun and with him. He anticipates the heart's objection: that it should be left behind since it delights in tormenting itself, that its business lies here and it will stay, while the body goes off to friends whose love and offerings satisfy eyes, ears, taste, and every other part — so why need the heart go along with the body. He answers that the heart may stay, but warns that after it has stayed and done its utmost, a naked thinking heart that makes no outward show is, to a woman, only a kind of ghost. He asks how she could know his heart, or, having none of her own, recognize his as one; practice might teach her to know some other part of him, but he insists she does not know a heart. He then proposes meeting at London twenty days hence, where the heart will see him fresher and fatter for having been among men than if he had stayed on with her and the heart. He asks, for God's sake, that the heart be so too if it can, and promises to give it there to another friend, one as glad to have his body as to have his mind.

By John Donne · First published 1633 · Genre: Metaphysical Poetry, Love Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 468 words

First lines

Little think'st thou, poor flower, / Whom I've watch'd six or seven days, / And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour / Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, / And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, / Little think'st thou, / That it will freeze anon, and that I shall / Tomorrow find thee fallen, or not at all.

Little think'st thou, poor heart, / That labourest yet to nestle thee, / And think'st by hovering here to get a part / In a forbidden or forbidding tree, / And hopest her stiffness by long siege to bow, / Little think'st thou, / That thou tomorrow, ere that sun doth wake, / Must with this sun and me a journey take.

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The Blossom 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, Lyric Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Dramatic Poetry
Length: 468 words
Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Metaphysical Poetry — Exemplifies Donne's signature extended conceit (blossom as heart metaphor), intellectual wit, paradoxes, and fusion of physical and spiritual imagery defining the Metaphysical movement.
Love Poetry — Central theme explores courtship dynamics, romantic absence, the beloved's inaccessibility, emotional vulnerability, and strategies of seduction within an intimate relationship.
Lyric Poetry — Expresses personal emotion and subjective introspection through the speaker's voice, employing regular meter and rhyme to convey intimate feeling and reflection.
Philosophical Poetry — Engages with philosophical questions about presence versus absence, the nature of identity and the heart, and epistemological concerns about how knowledge is achieved in relationships.