Press "Enter" to skip to content

A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being The Shortest Day by John Donne

0

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
;;;; Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
;;;;;;;; The sun is spent, and now his flasks
;;;;;;;; Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
;;;;;;;;;;;; The world’s whole sap is sunk;
;;;; The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
;;;; Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,
;;;; Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
;;;; Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.

;; Study me then, you who shall lovers be
;; At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
;;;;;; For I am every dead thing,
;;;;;; In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
;;;;;;;;;; For his art did express
;; A quintessence even from nothingness,
;; From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
;; He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot
;; Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

;; All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
;; Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
;;;;;; I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave
;;;;;; Of all that’s nothing. Oft a flood
;;;;;;;;;; Have we two wept, and so
;; Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
;; To be two chaoses, when we did show
;; Care to aught else; and often absences
;; Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

;; But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
;; Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
;;;;;; Were I a man, that I were one
;;;;;; I needs must know; I should prefer,
;;;;;;;;;; If I were any beast,
;; Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
;; And love; all, all some properties invest;
;; If I an ordinary nothing were,
;; As shadow, a light and body must be here.

;; But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
;; You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
;;;;;; At this time to the Goat is run
;;;;;; To fetch new ****, and give it you,
;;;;;;;;;; Enjoy your summer all;
;; Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,
;; Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
;; This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
;; Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.