John Donne (1572-1631)
Negative Love
1I never stoop'd so low, as they
2Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey,
3 Seldom to them which soar no higher
4 Than virtue, or the mind to admire,
5For sense and understanding may
6 Know what gives fuel to their fire:
7My love, though silly, is more brave,
8For may I miss, when ere I crave,
9If I know yet, what I would have.
10If that be simply perfectest,
11Which can by no way be expressed
12 But negatives, my love is so.
13 To all, which all love, I say no.
14If any who deciphers best,
15 What we know not, ourselves, can know,
16Let him teach me that nothing; this
17As yet my ease and comfort is,
18Though I speed not, I cannot miss.
Online text copyright © 2010, 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: 56.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RP edition: 2009
Recent editing: 1:2009/7/8
Form: nine-line stanzas
Rhyme: aabbabccc
Other poems by John Donne
