Read "The Will" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe, / Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath / Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see; / If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee; / My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears; / To women or the sea, my tears: / Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore / By making me serve her who had twenty more, / That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.
My constancy I to the planets give; / My truth to them who at the court do live; / Mine ingenuity and openness, / To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness; / My silence to any, who abroad hath been; / My money to a Capuchin: / Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me / To love there, where no love received can be, / Only to give to such as have an incapacity.