古典主义诗歌选篇

古典主义诗歌选篇

A Valediction: forbidding mourning

By John Donne As virtous men passe mildly'away,

And whisper to their soules, to goe,

Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,

The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,

'Twere prophanation of our joyes

To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th'earth brings harmes and feares,

Men reckon what it did and meant,

But trepidation of the spheares,

Though greater farre, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers love

(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a'love, so much refin'd

That we ourselves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hnds to misse.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,

Though I must goe, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiffe twin compasses are two,

Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the'other doe.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth rome,

It leanes, and hearkens after it,

And growes erect, as it comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must

Like th'other foor, obliquely runne;

Thy firmnes makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begunne.

THE SUN RISING.

by John Donne BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices ;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think ?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long.

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and to-morrow late tell me,

Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;

Nothing else is ;

Princes do but play us ; compared to this,

All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,

In that the world's contracted thus ;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

The Flea

By John Donne Marke but this flea, and marke in this,

How little that which thou deny'st me is;

Me it suck'd first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee;

Confesse it, this cannot be said

A sinne, or shame, or losse of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

When we almost, nay more than maryed are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,

And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.

Though use make thee apt to kill me,

Let not to this, selfe murder added bee,

And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.

Cruell and sodaine, has thou since

Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?

In what could this flea guilty bee,

Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st, and saist that thou

Find'st not thyself, nor mee the weaker now;

'Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;

Just so much honor, when thou yeeld'st to mee,

Will wast, as this flea's death tooke life from thee.

Exercpt from “An Anatomy of the World” (line 205-218)

By John Donne And new Philosophy calls all in doubt,

The Element of fire is quite put out;

The Sunne is lost, and th'earth, and no mans wit

Can well direct him where to looke for it.

And freely men confesse that this world's spent,

When in the Planets, and the Firmament

They seeke so many new; they see that this

Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.

'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;

All just supply, and all Relation:

Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,

[F]or every man alone thinkes he hath got

To be a Phoenix, and that then can be

None of that kinde, of which he is, but he.

Excerpt from MEDITATION XVII Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

By John Donne

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

To his Coy Mistress

By Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day; Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood; And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try That long preserv'd virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust.

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power. Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball;

And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

SONNET XIX. ON HIS BLINDNESS.

By John Milton

WHEN I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide,

'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?'

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.'

"The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way."

""Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,

On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou

Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn

Purples the east: still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few."