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Please read this article: it was covered by some friends at Christendom and is a very important battle for life ....

Fr. Gallagher

The Indifferent

by John Donne

I can love both fair and brown;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;
Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town;
Her who believes, and her who tries;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries.
I can love her, and her, and you, and you;
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me—and do you—twenty know;
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travel thorough you,
Grow your fix'd subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song;
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and return'd ere long,
And said, "Alas ! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, 'Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who're false to you.' "

* * *

Quite a different take on fidelity, isn't it? "Don't be faithful to me, because I sure won't be faithful to you." I wrote my Donne paper on this poem, because it just tickled me. I wonder if Donne didn't mean exactly that? They say he wrote his love poems mainly for his friends at law school, not for real women. I could see them chuckling over this one.

Holy Sonnet IV

by John Donne

O, my black soul, now thou art summoned
By sickness, Death's herald and champion;
Thou'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he's fled;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself deliver'd from prison,
But damn'd and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
O, make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

* * *

Quick translation from Metaphysical-speak: I'm sick; it's time for me to die now. Just as a convicted prisoner, led to execution, wishes himself back in prison, so I wish I did not have to die and face my judgment. I'd better repent now, because I know Christ will forgive me.

Sorry about the hurried posting ... between thesis, and student teaching, and everything else, I hardly know where I am anymore. I'll try to do a more thorough post another day.

It might be a good day...

To reread Ash-Wednesday.

The Winner--

if you hadn't noticed, is Maureen. Here's her poem one more time.



And in that hour
The trees of Eden all burst into flower.

And on that night,
The angel's flaming sword glowed candle-bright.

They miss us there,
Await the homecoming of Adam's heir.

Their blooms won't fade
Till earth and heaven are at last remade.

And on that day,
Through Paradise's walls will come a Way.

* * *

I happen to really love this poem. It's short, it's sweet, but it's so beautiful. Starting at "the hour" of the incarnation, but looking forward to "that day" when Christ comes again.

Thanks and congratulations, Maureen.