Poem of the day

[pallas_athena]

When I checked my Friends page this morning, I noticed that two people on my Friends list who don't know each other and live in different countries had made a reference to the same John Donne poem in their journals, so I figured this must be today's meme.

This poem is a favourite of mine, and apparently I'm not alone: Diana Wynne Jones uses it in her excellent book Howl's Moving Castle. Another friend of mine has set it to music. I post it here to aid the cause of John Donne pwning the internets with a song about how love pwnd him.


Song
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's 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.