Lovers' Infiniteness
Lovers' Infiniteness
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.
1If yet I have not all thy love,
2Dear, I shall never have it all;
3I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
4Nor can intreat one other tear to fall;
5And all my treasure, which should purchase thee--
6Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters--I have spent.
7Yet no more can be due to me,
8Than at the bargain made was meant;
9If then thy gift of love were partial,
10That some to me, some should to others fall,
11 Dear, I shall never have thee all.
12Or if then thou gavest me all,
13All was but all, which thou hadst then;
14But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
15New love created be, by other men,
16Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
17In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
18This new love may beget new fears,
19For this love was not vow'd by thee.
20And yet it was, thy gift being general;
21The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall
22 Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
23Yet I would not have all yet,
24He that hath all can have no more;
25And since my love doth every day admit
26New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
27Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
28If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it;
29Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
30It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it;
31But we will have a way more liberal,
32Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
33 Be one, and one another's all.
Publication Start Year
1633
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
3RP 1.168.
Rhyme