Read "To Mr. I. L.: Blest are your North Parts, for all this Long Time" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Blest are your north parts, for all this long time / My sun is with you; cold and dark 's our clime; / Heaven's sun, which stay'd so long from us this year, / Stay'd in your north, I think, for she was there; / And hither by kind nature drawn from thence, / Here rages, chafes, and threatens pestilence. / Yet I, as long as she from hence doth stay, / Think this no south, no summer, nor no day. / With thee my kind and unkind heart is run; / There sacrifice it to that beauteous sun. / So may thy pastures with their flowery feasts, / As suddenly as lard, fat thy lean beasts; / So may thy woods oft poll'd, yet ever wear / A green, and-when thee list-a golden hair; / So may all thy sheep bring forth twins; and so / In chase and race may thy horse all outgo; / So may thy love and courage ne'er be cold; / Thy son ne'er ward; thy loved wife ne'er seem old. / But mayst thou wish great things, and them attain, / As thou tell'st her, and none but her, my pain.