Read "To the Countess of Bedford: Reason is our Soul's Left Hand, Faith her Right" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Madam- / Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right; / By these we reach divinity, that's you; / Their loves, who have the blessing of your light, / Grew from their reason; mine from fair faith grew.
But as, although a squint left-handedness / Be ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand; / So would I-not to increase, but to express / My faith-as I believe, so understand.
Therefore I study you first in your saints, / Those friends whom your election glorifies; / Then in your deeds, accesses and restraints, / And what you read, and what yourself devise.
But soon the reasons why you're loved by all, / Grow infinite, and so pass reason's reach; / Then back again to implicit faith I fall, / And rest on that the Catholic voice doth teach-
That you are good; and not one heretic / Denies it; if he did, yet you are so; / For rocks, which high to sense deep-rooted stick, / Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.
In everything there naturally grows / A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, / If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows; / Your birth and beauty are this balm in you.
But you, of learning, and religion, / And virtue, and such ingredients, have made / A mithridate, whose operation / Keeps off, or cures, what can be done or said.
Yet this is not your physic, but your food, / A diet fit for you; for you are here / The first good angel, since the world's frame stood, / That ever did in woman's shape appear.
Since you are then God's masterpiece, and so / His factor for our loves, do as you do; / Make your return home gracious, and bestow / This life on that; so make one life of two. / For, so God help me, I would not miss you there, / For all the good which you can do me here.