John Donne (1572-1631)
Love's Diet
1To what a cumbersome unwieldiness
2And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,
3 But that I did, to make it less,
4 And keep it in proportion,
5Give it a diet, made it feed upon
6That which love worst endures, discretion.
7Above one sigh a day I allow'd him not,
8Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;
9 And if sometimes by stealth he got
10 A she sigh from my mistress' heart,
11And thought to feast upon that, I let him see
12'Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.
13If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so
14With scorn and shame, that him it nourish'd not;
15 If he suck'd hers, I let him know
16 'Twas not a tear which he had got;
17His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;
18For eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.
19Whatever he would dictate I writ that,
20But burnt her letters when she writ to me;
21 And if that favour made him fat,
22 I said, "If any title be
23Convey'd by this, ah, what doth it avail,
24To be the fortieth name in an entail?"
25Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard love, to fly
26At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.
27 Now negligent of sports I lie,
28 And now, as other falconers use,
29I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep:
30And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Donne, John. The Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne. Edited by Helen Gardner. London: Oxford University Press, 1965: 45-46.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RP edition: 2009
Recent editing: 1:2009/7/3
Form: sestets
Rhyme: ababcc
Other poems by John Donne
