Not that in Colour it was Like Thy Hair by John Donne

Not that in colour it was like thy hair, / For armlets of that thou mayst let me wear; / Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kiss'd, / For so it had that good, which oft I miss'd; / Nor for that silly old morality, / That, as these links were knit, our love should be, / Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost; / Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost. / O, shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet / No leaven of vile solder did admit; / Nor yet by any way have stray'd or gone / From the first state of their creation; / Angels, which heaven commanded to provide / All things to me, and be my faithful guide; / To gain new friends, to appease great enemies; / To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise; / Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe / Sentence, dread judge, my sin's great burden bear? / Shall they be damn'd, and in the furnace thrown, / And punish'd for offences not their own? / They save not me, they do not ease my pains, / When in that hell they're burnt and tied in chains. / Were they but crowns of France, I carèd not, / For most of these their country's natural rot, / I think, possesseth; they come here to us / So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous. / And howsoe'er French kings most Christian be, / Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly. / Or were they Spanish stamps, still travelling, / That are become as Catholic as their king; / Those unlick'd bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets, / That-more than cannon shot-avails or lets; / Which, negligently left unrounded, look / Like many-angled figures in the book / Of some great conjurer that would enforce / Nature, as these do justice, from her course; / Which, as the soul quickens head, feet and heart, / As streams, like veins, run through th' earth's every part, / Visit all countries, and have slyly made / Gorgeous France, ruin'd, ragged and decay'd, / Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day, / And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia. / Or were it such gold as that wherewithal / Almighty chemics, from each mineral / Having by subtle fire a soul out-pull'd, / Are dirtily and desperately gull'd; / I would not spit to quench the fire they're in, / For they are guilty of much heinous sin. / But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall / I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all? / Much hope which they should nourish will be dead; / Much of my able youth, and lustihead / Will vanish; if thou love, let them alone, / For thou wilt love me less when they are gone; / And be content that some loud squeaking crier, / Well-pleas'd with one lean threadbare groat for hire, / May like a devil roar through every street, / And gall the finder's conscience, if he meet. / Or let me creep to some dread conjurer, / That with fantastic scenes fills full much paper; / Which hath divided heaven in tenements, / And with whores, thieves, and murderers stuff'd his rents / So full, that though he pass them all in sin, / He leaves himself no room to enter in. / But if, when all his art and time is spent, / He say 'twill ne'er be found; yet be content; / Receive from him that doom ungrudgingly, / Because he is the mouth of destiny. / Thou say'st, alas! the gold doth still remain, / Though it be changed, and put into a chain. / So in the first fallen angels resteth still / Wisdom and knowledge, but 'tis turn'd to ill; / As these should do good works, and should provide / Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride. / And they are still bad angels; mine are none; / For form gives being, and their form is gone. / Pity these angels yet; their dignities / Pass Virtues, Powers, and Principalities. / But thou art resolute; thy will be done; / Yet with such anguish, as her only son / The mother in the hungry grave doth lay, / Unto the fire these martyrs I betray. / Good souls-for you give life to everything- / Good angels-for good messages you bring- / Destined you might have been to such an one, / As would have loved and worshipp'd you alone; / One that would suffer hunger, nakedness, / Yea death, ere he would make your number less; / But, I am guilty of your sad decay; / May your few fellows longer with me stay. / But O! thou wretched finder whom I hate / So, that I almost pity thy estate, / Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all, / May my most heavy curse upon thee fall. / Here fetter'd, manacled, and hang'd in chains, / First mayst thou be; then chain'd to hellish pains; / Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray / Thy country, and fail both of it and thy pay. / May the next thing thou stoop'st to reach, contain / Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain; / Or libels, or some interdicted thing, / Which negligently kept thy ruin bring. / Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee / Itching desire, and no ability. / May all the evils that gold ever wrought; / All mischief that all devils ever thought; / Want after plenty, poor and gouty age, / The plagues of travellers, love, marriage / Afflict thee, and at thy life's last moment, / May thy swollen sins themselves to thee present.

But, I forgive; repent thee, honest man! / Gold is restorative; restore it then: / But if from it thou be'st loth to depart, / Because 'tis cordial, would 'twere at thy heart.