The Damp
The Damp
Original Text
Donne, John. The Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne. Edited by Helen Gardner. London: Oxford University Press, 1965:
1When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
2 And my friends' curiosity
3Will have me cut up to survey each part,
4When they shall find your picture in my heart,
5 You think a sudden damp of love
6 Will thorough all their senses move,
7And work on them as me, and so prefer
8Your murder to the name of massacre.
9Poor victories! But if you dare be brave,
10 And pleasure in your conquest have,
11First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain;
12And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain ;
13 And like a Goth and Vandal rise,
14 Deface records and histories
15Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
16And without such advantage kill me then.
17For I could muster up, as well as you,
18 My giants, and my witches too,
19Which are vast Constancy and Secretness;
20But these I neither look for nor profess;
21 Kill me as woman, let me die
22 As a mere man; do you but try
23Your passive valour, and you shall find then,
24Naked you have odds enough of any man.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
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