The Indifferent by John Donne (1633)
The speaker declares he can love both fair women and brown, she whom abundance melts and she whom want betrays, she who loves loneliness best and she who masks and plays, she whom the country formed and whom the town, she who believes and she who tries, she who still weeps with spongy eyes, and she who is dry cork and never cries. He can love her, and her, and the addressee too, and can love any woman so long as she is not true, meaning faithful. He then turns to the woman he addresses and asks whether no other vice will content her, whether it will not serve her turn to do as her mothers did, or whether she has spent all the old vices and now would find out others. He asks whether a fear that men are true torments her, insisting that men are not true and urging her not to be so either. He asks her to let him, and her, know twenty lovers, to rob him but not bind him, and to let him go. He asks whether he, who came only to travel through her, must become her fixed subject merely because she is true. Venus hears him sigh this song, and swears by love's sweetest part, variety, that she had not heard the like until now, and that it should be so no more. She went, examined the matter, and returned before long, saying that alas, some two or three poor heretics in love exist who think to establish dangerous constancy, but that she has told them that since they will be true, they shall be true to those who are false to them.
By John Donne · First published 1633 · Genre: Metaphysical Poetry, Love Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 359 words
First lines
I can love both fair and brown; / Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays; / Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays; / Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town; / Her who believes, and her who tries; / Her who still weeps with spongy eyes, / And her who is dry cork, and never cries. / I can love her, and her, and you, and you; / I can love any, so she be not true.
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The Indifferent 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, Satirical Poetry, Libertine Poetry
- Length: 359 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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Genres
- Metaphysical Poetry — The poem exemplifies metaphysical verse through its use of wit, paradox, complex conceits, and intellectual argumentation about love; Donne is a foundational metaphysical poet employing philosophical wit and intricate reasoning about romantic themes.
- Love Poetry — The central subject is romantic love and attraction, though the poem subverts conventional love poetry by expressing cynicism about commitment and constancy rather than idealization.
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a brief, personal, emotionally expressive poem conveying the speaker's subjective attitudes and feelings in an introspective manner characteristic of lyric verse.
- Satirical Poetry — The poem satirizes romantic ideals and social expectations, mocking the notion of female constancy and fidelity through ironic reversal and critique of conventional morality.
Tags
metaphysical poetry · love poem · seventeenth century · romantic · wit · philosophical · emotional · paradox · irony · constancy · seduction · conceit