les poésies de John Donne

Bonjour,
voici les cinq poésies de John Donne (1573-1631) chantées pendant la performance he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick :


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.


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SONG.

SWEETEST love, I do not go,
    For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
    A fitter love for me ;
        But since that I
At the last must part, 'tis best,
Thus to use myself in jest
    By feigned deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
    And yet is here to-day ;
He hath no desire nor sense,
    Nor half so short a way ;
        Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
    More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,
    That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
    Nor a lost hour recall ;
        But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
    Itself o'er us to advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
    But sigh'st my soul away ;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
    My life's blood doth decay.
        It cannot be
That thou lovest me as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
    That art the best of me.
...

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LOVE'S DEITY.

I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost,
    Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
    Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
    I must love her that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,
    Nor he in his young godhead practised it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
    His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was ; it cannot be
    Love, till I love her, who loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
    His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
    All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O ! were we waken'd by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
    I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
    As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
    A deeper plague, to make her love me too ;
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate ; and that must be,
    If she whom I love, should love me.


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SONG.

SOUL'S joy, now I am gone,
              And you alone,
              —Which cannot be,
Since I must leave myself with thee,
       And carry thee with me—
       Yet when unto our eyes
              Absence denies
              Each other's sight,
And makes to us a constant night,
    When others change to light ;
              O give no way to grief,
              But let belief
                  Of mutual love
              This wonder to the vulgar prove,
                  Our bodies, not we move.



Let not thy wit beweep
              Words but sense deep ;
              For when we miss
By distance our hope's joining bliss,
       Even then our souls shall kiss ;
       Fools have no means to meet,
              But by their feet ;
              Why should our clay
Over our spirits so much sway,
    To tie us to that way?
              O give no way to grief, &c.

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ELEGIE XVIII : LOVES PROGRESS

Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he’s one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick
Love is a bear-whelp born, if we o’re lick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We erre, and of a lump a monster make.
...