His Parting from Her by John Donne

Since she must go, and I must mourn, come night, / Environ me with darkness, whilst I write; / Shadow that hell unto me, which alone / I am to suffer when my love is gone. / Alas! the darkest magic cannot do it, / And that great hell, to boot, are shadows to it. / Should Cynthia quit thee, Venus, and each star, / It would not form one thought dark as mine are. / I could lend them obscureness now, and say / Out of myself, there should be no more day. / Such is already my self-want of sight, / Did not the fire within me force a light. / O Love, that fire and darkness should be mix'd, / Or to thy triumphs such strange torments fix'd! / Is it because thou thyself art blind, that we, / Thy martyrs, must no more each other see? / Or takest thou pride to break us on thy wheel, / And view old Chaos in the pains we feel? / Or have we left undone some mutual rite, / That thus with parting thou seek'st us to spite? / No, no. The fault is mine, impute it to me, / Or rather to conspiring destiny, / Which, since I loved in jest before, decreed / That I should suffer, when I loved indeed; / And therefore, sooner now than I can say, / I saw the golden fruit, 'tis rapt away; / Or as I'd watch'd one drop in the vast stream, / And I left wealthy only in a dream. / Yet, Love, thou'rt blinder than myself in this, / To vex my dove-like friend for my amiss; / And where one sad truth may expiate / Thy wrath, to make her fortune run my fate. / So blinded justice doth, when favourites fall, / Strike them, their house, their friends, their favourites all. / Was't not enough that thou didst dart thy fires / Into our bloods, inflaming our desires, / And madest us sigh, and blow, and pant, and burn, / And then thyself into our flames didst turn? / Was't not enough that thou didst hazard us / To paths in love so dark and dangerous, / And those so ambush'd round with household spies, / And over all thy husband's towering eyes, / Inflamed with th' ugly sweat of jealousy; / Yet went we not still on in constancy? / Have we for this kept guards, like spy on spy? / Had correspondence whilst the foe stood by? / Stolen, more to sweeten them, our many blisses / Of meetings, conference, embracements, kisses? / Shadow'd with negligence our best respects? / Varied our language through all dialects / Of becks, winks, looks, and often under boards / Spoke dialogues with our feet far from our words? / Have we proved all the secrets of our art, / Yea, thy pale inwards, and thy panting heart? / And, after all this passed purgatory, / Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story? / First let our eyes be riveted quite through / Our turning brain, and both our lips grow to; / Let our arms clasp like ivy, and our fear / Freeze us together, that we may stick here, / Till Fortune, that would ruin us with the deed, / Strain his eyes open, and yet make them bleed. / For Love it cannot be, whom hitherto / I have accused, should such a mischief do. / O Fortune, thou'rt not worth my least exclaim, / And plague enough thou hast in thy own name. / Do thy great worst; my friend and I have charms, / Though not against thy strokes, against thy harms. / Rend us in sunder; thou canst not divide / Our bodies so, but that our souls are tied, / And we can love by letters still and gifts, / And thoughts and dreams; love never wanteth shifts. / I will not look upon the quickening sun, / But straight her beauty to my sense shall run; / The air shall note her soft, the fire, most pure; / Waters suggest her clear, and the earth sure. / Time shall not lose our passages; the spring, / How fresh our love was in the beginning; / The summer, how it ripen'd in the year; / And autumn, what our golden harvests were; / The winter I'll not think on to spite thee, / But count it a lost season; so shall she. / And dearest friend, since we must part, drown night / With hope of day-burdens well borne are light-; / The cold and darkness longer hang somewhere, / Yet Phoebus equally lights all the sphere; / And what we cannot in like portion pay / The world enjoys in mass, and so we may. / Be then ever yourself, and let no woe / Win on your health, your youth, your beauty; so / Declare yourself base Fortune's enemy, / No less be your contempt than her inconstancy; / That I may grow enamour'd on your mind, / When mine own thoughts I here neglected find. / And this to the comfort of my dear I vow, / My deeds shall still be what my deeds are now; / The poles shall move to teach me ere I start; / And when I change my love, I'll change my heart. / Nay, if I wax but cold in my desire, / Think, heaven hath motion lost, and the world, fire, / Much more I could, but many words have made / That oft suspected which men most persuade. / Take therefore all in this; I love so true, / As I will never look for less in you.