Kind Pity Chokes my Spleen; Brave Scorn Forbids by John Donne

Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids / Those tears to issue, which swell my eyelids. / I must not laugh, nor weep sins, and be wise. / Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? / Is not our mistress, fair Religion, / As worthy of all our souls' devotion, / As virtue was in the first blinded age? / Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage / Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, / As we do them in means, shall they surpass / Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit / Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit / Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear / Thee, whom he taught so easy ways, and near / To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou darest, fear this; / This fear great courage and high valour is. / Darest thou aid mutinous Dutch; and darest thou lay / Thee in ships, wooden sepulchres, a prey / To leaders' rage, to storms, to shot, to dearth? / Darest thou dive seas, and dungeons of the earth? / Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice / Of frozen North discoveries; and thrice / Colder than salamanders, like divine / Children in th' oven, fires of Spain and the line, / Whose countries limbecs to our bodies be, / Canst thou for gain bear? and must every he / Which cries not, "Goddess! " to thy mistress, draw, / Or eat thy poisonous words? courage of straw! / O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and / To thy foes, and his, who made thee to stand / Sentinel in his world's garrison, thus yield, / And for forbid wars leave th' appointed field? / Know thy foes; the foul devil, he whom thou / Strivest to please, for hate, not love, would allow / Thee fain his whole realm to be quit; and as / The world's all parts wither away and pass, / So the world's self, thy other loved foe, is / In her decrepit wane, and thou loving this, / Dost love a wither'd and worn strumpet; last, / Flesh, itself's death, and joys which flesh can taste, / Thou lovest; and thy fair goodly soul, which doth / Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe. / Seek true religion, O where? Mirreus, / Thinking her unhoused here and fled from us, / Seeks her at Rome, there, because he doth know / That she was there a thousand years ago; / And loves the rags so, as we here obey / The state-cloth where the prince sat yesterday. / Crants to such brave loves will not be enthrall'd, / But loves her only who at Geneva 's call'd / Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young, / Contemptuous yet unhandsome; as among / Lecherous humours, there is one that judges / No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges. / Graius stays still at home here, and because / Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws, / Still new, like fashions, bid him think that she / Which dwells with us, is only perfect, he / Embraceth her, whom his godfathers will / Tender to him, being tender; as wards still / Take such wives as their guardians offer, or / Pay values. Careless Phrygius doth abhor / All, because all cannot be good; as one, / Knowing some women whores, dares marry none. / Gracchus loves all as one, and thinks that so / As women do in divers countries go / In divers habits, yet are still one kind, / So doth, so is religion; and this blind- / Ness too much light breeds. But unmovèd thou / Of force must one, and forced but one allow; / And the right. Ask thy father which is she; / Let him ask his. Though Truth and Falsehood be / Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is. / Be busy to seek her; believe me this, / He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best. / To adore, or scorn an image, or protest, / May all be bad. Doubt wisely; in strange way, / To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; / To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill, / Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will / Reach her, about must and about must go, / And what th' hill's suddenness resists, win so. / Yet strive so, that before age, death's twilight, / Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night. / To will implies delay, therefore now do / Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge to / The mind's endeavours reach; and mysteries / Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes. / Keep the truth which thou hast found; men do not stand / In so ill case, that God hath with His hand / Signed kings blank-charters, to kill whom they hate; / Nor are they vicars, but hangmen to fate. / Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied / To man's laws, by which she shall not be tried / At the last day? or will it then boot thee / To say a Philip or a Gregory, / A Harry or a Martin, taught thee this? / Is not this excuse for mere contraries / Equally strong? cannot both sides say so? / That thou mayst rightly obey power, her bounds know; / Those past, her nature and name is changed; to be / Then humble to her is idolatry. / As streams are, power is; those blest flowers, that dwell / At the rough stream's calm head, thrive and do well, / But having left their roots, and themselves given / To the stream's tyrannous rage, alas, are driven / Through mills, rocks, and woods, and at last, almost / Consumed in going, in the sea are lost. / So perish souls, which more choose men's unjust / Power from God claim'd, than God Himself to trust.