Away, Thou Changeling Motley Humourist by John Donne

Away, thou changeling motley humourist, / Leave me, and in this standing wooden chest, / Consorted with these few books, let me lie / In prison, and here be coffin'd when I die. / Here are God's conduits, grave divines, and here / Nature's secretary, the philosopher, / And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie / The sinews of a city's mystic body; / Here gathering chroniclers, and by them stand / Giddy fantastic poets of each land. / Shall I leave all this constant company, / And follow headlong, wild, uncertain thee? / First, swear by thy best love, here, in earnest / -If thou, which lovest all, canst love any best- / Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street, / Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet; / Not though a captain do come in thy way / Bright parcel-gilt, with forty dead men's pay; / Not though a brisk perfumèd pert courtier / Deign with a nod thy courtesy to answer; / Nor come a velvet justice with a long / Great train of blue coats, twelve or fourteen strong, / Wilt thou grin, or fawn on him, or prepare / A speech to court his beauteous son and heir? / For better or worse take me, or leave me; / To take and leave me is adultery. / O monstrous, superstitious puritan, / Of refined manners, yet ceremonial man, / That when thou meet'st one, with enquiring eyes / Doth search, and like a needy broker prize / The silk and gold he wears, and to that rate, / So high or low, dost raise thy formal hat; / That will consort none, until thou have known / What lands he hath in hope, or of his own, / As though all thy companions should make thee / Jointures, and marry thy dear company. / Why shouldst thou, that dost not only approve, / But in rank itchy lust, desire and love / The nakedness and bareness to enjoy / Of thy plump muddy whore, or prostitute boy, / Hate virtue, though she be naked and bare? / At birth, and death, our bodies naked are; / And, till our souls be unapparelled / Of bodies, they from bliss are banished. / Man's first blest state was naked; when by sin / He lost that, he was clothed but in beasts' skin; / And in this coarse attire, which I now wear, / With God and with the Muses I confer. / But since thou, like a contrite penitent, / Charitably warn'd of thy sins, dost repent / These vanities and giddinesses, lo! / I shut my chamber door; and come, let's go. / But sooner may a cheap whore, who hath been / Worn by as many several men in sin, / As are black feathers, or musk-coloured hose, / Name her child's right true father 'mongst all those; / Sooner may one guess who shall bear away / Th' infant of London, heir to an India; / And sooner may a gulling weather-spy, / By drawing forth heaven's scheme, tell certainly / What fashion'd hats, or ruffs, or suits next year / Our subtle-witted antic youths will wear, / Than thou, when thou depart'st from me, can show / Whither, why, when, or with whom thou wouldst go. / But how shall I be pardon'd my offence / That thus have sinn'd against my conscience? / Now we are in the street; he first of all, / Improvidently proud, creeps to the wall; / And so imprison'd, and hemm'd in by me, / Sells for a little state high liberty. / Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet / Every fine, silken, painted fool we meet, / He them to him with amorous smiles allures, / And grins, smacks, shrugs, and such an itch endures, / As 'prentices or schoolboys, which do know / Of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go. / And as fiddlers stop lowest, at highest sound, / So to the most brave, stoops he nighest the ground. / But to a grave man he doth move no more / Than the wise politic horse would heretofore, / Or thou, O elephant, or ape, wilt do, / When any names the King of Spain to you. / Now leaps he upright, jogs me, and cries, "Do you see / Yonder well-favoured youth? " "Which? " "O, 'tis he / That dances so divinely. " "O," said I, / "Stand still, must you dance here for company? " / He droop'd, we went, till one-which did excel / Th' Indians in drinking his tobacco well- / Met us; they talk'd; I whisper'd, "Let us go, / 'T may be you smell him not; truly I do. " / He hears not me, but, on the other side / A many-colour'd peacock having spied, / Leaves him and me; I for my lost sheep stay; / He follows, overtakes, goes on the way, / Saying, "Him whom I last left, all repute / For his device in handsoming a suit, / To judge of lace, pink, panes, print, cut, and pleat, / Of all the court to have the best conceit. " / "Our dull comedians want him, let him go; / But O, God strengthen thee, why stopp'st thou so? " / "Why! " "Hath he travell'd long? " "No. " "But to me, / Which understand none, he doth seem to be / Perfect French and Italian," I replied, / "So is the pox. " He answer'd not, but spied / More men of sort, of parts and qualities. / At last his love he in a window spies, / And like light dew exhaled, he flings from me / Violently ravish'd to his lechery. / Many were there; he could command no more; / He quarrell'd, fought, bled; and turn'd out of door / Directly came to me, hanging the head, / And constantly a while must keep his bed.