Read "The Flea" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this, / How little that which thou deniest me is; / It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. / Thou know'st that this cannot be said / A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead; / Yet this enjoys before it woo, / And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two; / And this, alas! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare, / Where we almost, yea, more than married are / This flea is you and I, and this / Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. / Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, / And cloister'd in these living walls of jet. / Though use make you apt to kill me, / Let not to that self-murder added be, / And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.