Read "A Valediction to his Book" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I'll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do / To anger destiny, as she doth us; / How I shall stay, though she eloign me thus, / And how posterity shall know it too; / How thine may out-endure / Sibyl's glory, and obscure / Her who from Pindar could allure, / And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame, / And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name.
Study our manuscripts, those myriads / Of letters, which have past 'twixt thee and me; / Thence write our annals, and in them will be / To all whom love's subliming fire invades / Rule and example found; / There the faith of any ground / No schismatic will dare to wound, / That sees, how Love this grace to us affords, / To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records.