Explore "The Broken Heart" by John Donne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He is stark mad, whoever says, / That he hath been in love an hour, / Yet not that love so soon decays, / But that it can ten in less space / Who will believe me, if I swear devour; / That I have had the plague a year? / Who would not laugh at me, if I should say / I saw a flash of powder burn a day?
Ah, what a trifle is a heart, / If once into love's hands it come! / All other griefs allow a part / To other griefs, and ask themselves but some; / They come to us, but us love draws; / He swallows us and never chaws; / By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die; / He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.