The Sun Rising
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 the' 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.
John Donne |