RPO -- John Donne : The Good-morrow

John Donne (1572-1631)

The Good-morrow

1I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

2Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then,

3But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?

4Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?

5'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

6If ever any beauty I did see,

7Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

8And now good morrow to our waking souls,

9Which watch not one another out of fear;

10For love, all love of other sights controls,

11And makes one little room, an everywhere.

12Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

13Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

14Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

15My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

16And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

17Where can we find two better hemispheres,

18Without sharp north, without declining west?

19Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;

20If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

21Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Notes

4] the seven sleepers' den. According to a popular legend, seven young Christians of Ephesus, in the second century, took refuge from Roman persecution in a cave, and miraculously slept for some two hundred years when the entrance of their cave was walled up by their pursuers.

13] other. Some MSS. read "others," but "other" is an old plural form.

19-21] The scholastic doctrine is that what is simple (that is, one, or though two, always alike, not a compound) cannot be dissolved or die; ''equally" means qualitatively the same.

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 ROBA. Facs. edn. Menston: Scolar Press, 1969. PR 2245 A2 1633A. STC 7045.
First publication date: 1633
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 3RP 1.165.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/3

Rhyme: ababccc

Other poems by John Donne