John Donne (1572-1631)
The Calm
1Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage,
2A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.
3The fable is inverted, and far more
4A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
5Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
6In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
7As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts were,
8Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,
9The sea is now; and, as the isles which we
10Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
11As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
12As lead, when a fir'd church becomes one spout.
13And all our beauty, and our trim, decays,
14Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
15The fighting-place now seamen's rags supply;
16And all the tackling is a frippery.
17No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
18Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.
19Earth's hollownesses, which the world's lungs are,
20Have no more wind than the upper vault of air.
21We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
22But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
23Only the calenture together draws
24Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes' jaws;
25And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
26Each one, his own priest, and own sacrifice.
27Who live, that miracle do multiply,
28Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
29If in despite of these we swim, that hath
30No more refreshing than our brimstone bath;
31But from the sea into the ship we turn,
32Like parboil'd wretches, on the coals to burn.
33Like Bajazet encag'd, the shepherds' scoff,
34Or like slack-sinew'd Samson, his hair off,
35Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
36Of ants durst th' emperor's lov'd snake invade,
37The crawling gallies, sea-gaols, finny chips,
38Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
39Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
40Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
41Of being belov'd and loving, or the thirst
42Of honour, or fair death, out-push'd me first,
43I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
44A desperate may live, and a coward die.
45Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
46Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies.
47Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
48A scourge, 'gainst which we all forget to pray.
49He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
50Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
51What are we then? How little more, alas,
52Is man now, than before he was? He was
53Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
54Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
55We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
56I should not then thus feel this misery.
Notes
1] One of Donne's Letters to Several Personages. In the summer of 1597 Donne took part in an expedition of Essex and Raleigh against the Spaniards. While with the fleet he wrote two verse epistles, "The Storm" and "The Calm," descriptive of incidents on the voyage. The first of these, and almost certainly the second also, was addressed to his friend, Christopher Brooke, his fellow-student at Lincoln's Inn.
4] A reference to the fable of the frogs choosing a king.
9-10] those isles which we seek. The Azores.
13] trim. Ornament.
16] frippery. An old-clothes shop.
21] lost friends. The squadrons of Essex and Raleigh lost each other at one stage of the voyage.
22] meteor-like. The reference is not to a shooting star but to the aurora or some kindred phenomenon.
23] calenture. Fever (Spanish calentura). A delirium in which, it was said, sailors desired to leap into the sea, thinking it a green field.
28] Alluding to the story of the fiery furnace (Daniel, iii).
33] Bizjazet. See Marlowe's Tamburlaine, IV, ii and V, ii. Bajazeth, Sultan of Turkey, defeated by the Scythian shepherd, Tamburlaine, is imprisoned in a cage and mocked by his conqueror, until he finally kills himself.
34] Samson. See Judges, xvi, 16-19. 35-36. An allusion to a story told of the Emperor Tiberius by Suetonius.
37] sea-gaols (not "sea-gulls" as in some editions). Galleys were rowed by convicts. finny chips. The phrase is descriptive of their flatness and of their numerous oars.
38] pinnaces. The light and swift scouting vessels of the fleet, which, in the absence of wind, are slower than the galleys.
39] rotten state. Bad financial condition.
40] queasy. Nauseating.
54] disproportion it. Throw us out of harmony with our surroundings.
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: John Donne, Poems, by J. D. With elegies on the authors death (M. F. for J. Marriot, 1633). MICF no. 556 Robarts Library. Facs. edn. (Menston: Scolar Press, 1969). PR 2245 A2 1633A. STC 7045
First publication date:
1633
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 2RP.1. 282
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/3
Composition date:
1597
Form: Heroic Couplets
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