Went you to conquer? and have so much lost
Yourself, that what in you was best and most,
Respective friendship, should so quickly die?
In public gain my share is not such that I
Would lose your love for Ireland: better cheap
I pardon death (who though he do not reap
Yet gleans he many of our friends away)
Then that your waking mind should be a prey
To lethargies. Let shot, and bogs, and skeins
With bodies deal, as fate bids and restrains;
Ere sicknesses attack, young death is best,
Who pays before his death doth ’scape arrest.
Let not your soul (at first with graces fill’d,
And since, and thorough crooked limbecs, still’d
In many schools and courts, which quicken it,)
It self unto the Irish negligence submit.
I ask not laboured letters which should wear
Long papers out: nor letters which should fear
Dishonest carriage: or a seers art:
Nor such as from the brain come, but the heart.
Public-domain source text
Henrico Wottoni in Hibernia Belligeranti
by John Donne
Source record
This is a source transcription from Standard Ebooks, published in Past Poetry’s public-domain archive without line-by-line editorial notes. Public-domain source edition. Availability can vary by territory.
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