Monday, September 17, 2012

Shout out to my metaphysical homies

Probably no one knows this about me. Well, maybe a few of my fellow English majors, but not my family or closest friends. They would say, who are these mystery men you're obsessed with? There have been times I have tried to introduce the special people in my life to the greatness of these men, but I don't think I've gotten through to them completely. So I hope you read and appreciate a poem from this genius of a man, whose words feed my soul. Without further ado, I give you, John Donne.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
   And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
   "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
   To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
   Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
   Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
   --Whose soul is sense-- cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
   The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
   That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
   Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
   Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
   Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
   As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
   To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
   Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
   Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
   And makes me end where I begun.


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