Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love, <br />And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove <br />Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand <br />The mystic language of the eye nor hand: <br />Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air <br />Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair: <br />Nor by th' eyes water call a malady <br />Desperately hot, or changing feverously. <br />I had not taught thee, then, the Alphabet <br />Of flowers, how they devisefully being set <br />And bound up might with speechless secrecy <br />Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. <br />Remember since all thy words used to be <br />To every suitor, Ay, if my friends agree; <br />Since, household charms, thy husband's name to teach, <br />Were all the love tricks that thy wit could reach; <br />And since, an hour's discourse could scarce have made <br />One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed <br />In broken proverbs and torn sentences. <br />Thou art not by so many duties his, <br />That from the world's Common having severed thee, <br />Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see, <br />As mine: who have with amorous delicacies <br />Refined thee into a blisful Paradise. <br />Thy graces and good words my creatures be; <br />I planted knowledge and life's tree in thee, <br />Which Oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas <br />Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? <br />Chaf wax for others' seals? break a colt's force <br />And leave him then, being made a ready horse?<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-vii/
