Elegy on Mistress Boulstred by John Donne

Death I recant, and say, “Unsaid by me, Whate’er hath slipp’d, that might diminish thee. Spiritual treason, atheism” ’tis to say That any can thy summons disobey. Th’ earth’s face is but thy table; there are set Plants, cattle, men, dishes for death to eat. In a rude hunger now he millions draws Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws. Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste, Eating the best first, well preserved to last. Now wantonly he spoils, and eats us not, But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot. Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep Where harmless fish monastic silence keep; Who⁠—were Death dead⁠—by roes of living sand Might sponge that element, and make it land. He rounds the air, and breaks the hymnic notes In birds’, heaven’s choristers, organic throats; Which, if they did not die, might seem to be A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy. O strong and long-lived death, how camest thou in? And how without creation didst begin? Thou hast, and shalt see dead, before thou diest, All the four Monarchies, and Antichrist. How could I think thee nothing, that see now In all this All nothing else is, but thou? Our births and lives, vices and virtues, be Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee. For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath, Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death. And though thou be’st, O mighty bird of prey, So much reclaim’d by God, that thou must lay All that thou kill’st at His feet, yet doth He Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee. And of those few now thou hast overthrown One whom thy blow makes, not ours, nor thine own. She was more storeys high; hopeless to come To her soul, thou hast offer’d at her lower room. Her soul and body was a king and court; But thou hast both of captain miss’d and fort. As houses fall not, though the kings remove, Bodies of saints rest for their souls above. Death gets ’twixt souls and bodies such a place As sin insinuates ’twixt just men and grace; Both work a separation, no divorce. Her soul is gone to usher up her corse, Which shall be almost another soul⁠—for there Bodies are purer than best souls are here. Because in her, her virtues did outgo Her years, would’st thou, O emulous death, do so, And kill her young to thy loss? must the cost Of beauty and wit, apt to do harm, be lost? What though thou found’st her proof ’gainst sins of youth? O, every age a diverse sin pursueth. Thou should’st have stayed, and taken better hold. Shortly, ambitious; covetous, when old, She might have proved; and such devotion Might once have stray’d to superstition. If all her virtues must have grown, yet might Abundant virtue have bred a proud delight. Had she persever’d just, there would have been Some that would sin, misthinking she did sin. Such as would call her friendship, love, and feign To sociableness, a name profane, Or sin by tempting, or, not daring that, By wishing, though they never told her what. Thus mightst thou have slain more souls had’st thou not cross’d Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost. Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one, Which is, immoderate grief that she is gone. But we may ’scape that sin, yet weep as much; Our tears are due because we are not such. Some tears, that knot of friends, her death must cost, Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.