Song
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devils foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return'st wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
Commentary
Here is Donne at his bitterest - the disappointed lover reviles womankind and bemoans his own fortune as well. But like all of Donne’s poetry, it is simply beautiful : read aloud the wonderful first stanza and you would know why Tagore rated Donne the greatest lyric poet in the English tongue.
— Anustup
PS. I have always felt that Donne’s use of difficult argument, complex metaphor and allegory was a device to control and discipline his wildly romantic heart - he treads over-carefully like a drunk who does not trust his own tottering footsteps.
Show 5 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
John Allnutt · 18 February 2003
this poem is not john donne’s “song”. im not familiar with this poem, but “song” begins with “sweetest love, i do not go / for weariness of thee,….”
Joan McMillan · 31 May 2003
I love that poem, that outstanding woman and the truth she speaks! A”phenomenal woman” and then some!
Iona McMillan
Hcrltn · 10 June 2003
I don’t know if this message will actually get to John Allnutt concerning the title “Song,” but this poem IS entitled such. The “Sweetest love, I do not go…” is also titled “Song.” There are two “Song(s).” Besides, Donne never titled his poems. Editors did.
–Heather
Anne-marie Gaudefroy · 20 February 2004
Hi! I am French and my name is Aur?lie;could you give me some help with john Donne’s song”sweetest love I do not go”? thanks beforehand!
Omar Aftab · 14 May 2008
I’ve always loved this poem, but the lines:
“And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind”
Ruins the melodic, rhyming quality for me. Rather like Blake’s “The Tiger”:
“Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Most annoying. And yes, I know that “symmetry” and “wind” might have been pronounced differently, but jarring nevertheless.