Change by John Donne

Although thy hand and faith, and good works too, / Have seal'd thy love which nothing should undo, / Yea, though thou fall back, that apostasy / Confirm thy love, yet much, much I fear thee. / Women are like the arts, forced unto none, / Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown. / If I have caught a bird, and let him fly, / Another fowler using these means, as I, / May catch the same bird; and, as these things be, / Women are made for men, not him nor me. / Foxes, and goats-all beasts-change when they please. / Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these, / Be bound to one man, and did nature then / Idly make them apter to endure than men? / They're our clogs, not their own; if a man be / Chain'd to a galley, yet the galley's free. / Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed corn there, / And yet allows his ground more corn should bear; / Though Danuby into the sea must flow, / The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po. / By nature, which gave it, this liberty / Thou lovest, but O! canst thou love it and me? / Likeness glues love; and if that thou so do, / To make us like and love, must I change too? / More than thy hate, I hate it; rather let me / Allow her change, then change as oft as she, / And so not teach, but force my opinion, / To love not anyone, nor everyone. / To live in one land is captivity, / To run all countries a wild roguery. / Waters stink soon, if in one place they bide, / And in the vast sea are more putrified; / But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this / Never look back, but the next bank do kiss, / Then are they purest; change is the nursery / Of music, joy, life, and eternity.