MARCH 11TH METAPHYSICAL POETRY: SUCKLING AND DONNE

Sir John Suckling

Love is the fart
Of every heart:
It pains a man when 'tis kept close
And others doth offend, when 'tis let loose.

John Donne, "Woman’s Constancy”

Now thou hast lov’d me one whole day,

Tomorrow when thou leav’st, what wilt thou say?      

Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?

            Or say that now

We are not just those persons which we were?

Or that oaths made in reverential fear

Of Love and his wrath, any may forswear?

Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,

So lovers’ contracts, images of those,

Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose?

            Or, your own end to justify,

For having purpos’d change and falsehood, you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vain lunatic, against these ‘scapes I could

            Dispute and conquer if I would,

            Which I abstain to do,

For by tomorrow I may think so too.