A Valediction: of My Name in the Window
A Valediction: of My Name in the Window
Original Text
Donne, John. The Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne. Edited by Helen Gardner. London: Oxford University Press, 1965: 64-66.
1 My name engraved herein,
2Doth contribute my firmness to this glass,
3 Which ever since that charm hath been
4 As hard, as that which graved it was;
5Thine eye will give it price enough, to mock
6 The diamonds of either rock.
7 'Tis much that glass should be
8As all-confessing, and through-shine as I ;
9 'Tis more that it shows thee to thee,
10 And clear reflects thee to thine eye.
11But all such rules love's magic can undo,
12 Here you see me, and I am you.
13 As no one point, nor dash,
14Which are but accessories to this name,
15 The showers and tempests can outwash,
16 So shall all times find me the same;
17You this entireness better may fulfill,
18 Who have the pattern with you still.
19 Or if too hard and deep
20This learning be, for a scratch'd name to teach,
21 It as a given death's head keep,
22 Lovers' mortality to preach ;
23Or think this ragged bony name to be
24 My ruinous anatomy.
25 Then, as all my souls be
26Emparadised in you, (in whom alone
27 I understand, and grow, and see,)
28 The rafters of my body, bone,
29Being still with you, the muscle, sinew, and vein
30 Which tile this house, will come again.
31 Till my return repair
32And re-compact my scatter’d body so,
33 As all the virtuous powers which are
34 Fix’d in the stars are said to flow
35Into such characters as graved be
36 When these stars have supremacy.
37 So since this name was cut
38When love and grief their exaltation had,
39 No door 'gainst this name's influence shut;
40 As much more loving, as more sad,
41'Twill make thee ; and thou shouldst, till I return,
42 Since I die daily, daily mourn.
43 When thy inconsiderate hand
44Flings open this casement, with my trembling name,
45 To look on one, whose wit or land,
46 New battery to thy heart may frame,
47Then think this name alive, and that thou thus
48 In it offend’st my Genius.
49 And when thy melted maid,
50Corrupted by thy lover's gold and page,
51 His letter at thy pillow hath laid,
52 Disputed it, and tamed thy rage,
53And thou begin'st to thaw towards him, for this,
54 May my name step in, and hide his.
55 And if this treason go
56To an overt act and that thou write again;
57 In super-scribing, this name flow
58 Into thy fancy from the pane.
59So, in forgetting thou rememb'rest right,
60 And unaware to me shalt write.
61 But glass and lines must be,
62No means our firm substantial love to keep;
63 Near death inflicts this lethargy,
64 And this I murmur in my sleep;
65Impute this idle talk, to that I go,
66 For dying men talk often so.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
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