Whilst yet to prove, <br />I thought there was some deity in love <br />So did I reverence, and gave <br />Worship, as atheists at their dying hour <br />Call, what they cannot name, an unknown power, <br />As ignorantly did I crave: <br />Thus when <br />Things not yet known are coveted by men, <br />Our desires give them fashion, and so <br />As they wax lesser, fall, as they size, grow. <br /> <br />But, from late fair <br />His highness sitting in a golden chair, <br />Is not less cared for after three days <br />By children, than the thing which lovers so <br />Blindly admire, and with such worship woo; <br />Being had, enjoying it decays: <br />And thence, <br />What before pleased them all, takes but one sense, <br />And that so lamely, as it leaves behind <br />A kind of sorrowing dullness to the mind. <br /> <br />Ah cannot we, <br />As well as cocks and lions jocund be, <br />After such pleasures ? Unless wise <br />Nature decreed (since each such act, they say <br />Diminish the length of life a day) <br />This; as she would man should despise <br />The sport, <br />Because that other curse of being short, <br />And only for a minute made to be <br />Eager, desires to raise posterity. <br /> <br />Since so, my mind <br />Shall not desire what no man else can find, <br />I`ll no more dote and run <br />To purse things which had, endamaged me. <br />And when I come where moving beauties be, <br />As men do when the summer’s sun <br />Grows great, <br />Though I admire their greatness, shun their heat; <br />Each place can afford shadow. If all fail, <br />’Tis but applying worm-seed to the tail.<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/farewell-to-love/
