John Donne (1572-1631)
Song: Go and catch a falling star
1Go and catch a falling star,
2 Get with child a mandrake root,
3Tell me where all past years are,
4 Or who cleft the devil's foot,
5Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
6Or to keep off envy's stinging,
7 And find
8 What wind
9Serves to advance an honest mind.
10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.
19If thou find'st one, let me know,
20 Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
21Yet do not, I would not go,
22 Though at next door we might meet;
23Though she were true, when you met her,
24And last, till you write your letter,
25 Yet she
26 Will be
27False, ere I come, to two, or three.
Notes
2] mandrake root: a forked root supposed to resemble the human shape.
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: 4:2002/2/5
Rhyme: ababccddd
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