William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
Christopher Hassall
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
John Donne
“The Sun Rising” is one of John Donne’s best-known love poems. It describes how the morning sun disturbs and threatens to cut short the time the speaker, we may assume Donne himself, can spend in bed with his lover. The central idea is that the couple’s love is greater than the power of the sun.
In...
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 th' 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.
The Sun Rising was written by John Donne.