The Sun Rising
The Sun Rising
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.
1 Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
2 Why dost thou thus,
3Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
4Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
5 Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
6 Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
7 Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
8 Call country ants to harvest offices,
10Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
11 Thy beams, so reverend and strong
12 Why shouldst thou think?
13I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
14But that I would not lose her sight so long:
15 If her eyes have not blinded thine,
16 Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
18 Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
19Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
20And thou shalt hear: "All here in one bed lay."
21 She'is all states, and all princes I,
22 Nothing else is.
23Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
25 Thou, sun, art half as happy'as we,
26 In that the world's contracted thus;
27 Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
28 To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
29Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
30This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
Notes
9] all alike: unchanging. Back to Line
17] both the'Indias: the East Indies and the West Indies, one famous for perfumes and spices, the other for gold and mines. Back to Line
24] alchemy: here means counterfeit gold. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1633
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
3RP 1.166-67.
Rhyme