LIKE one who in her third widowhood doth profess <br />Herself a nun, tied to retiredness, <br />So affects my Muse, now, a chaste fallowness. <br /> <br />Since she to few, yet to too many hath shown, <br />How love-song weeds and satiric thorns are grown, <br />Where seeds of better arts were early sown ; <br /> <br />Though to use and love poetry, to me, <br />Betroth'd to no one art, be no adultery ; <br />Omissions of good, ill, as ill deeds be. <br /> <br />For though to us it seems but light and thin, <br />Yet in those faithful scales, where God throws in <br />Men's works, vanity weighs as much as sin. <br /> <br />If our souls have stain'd their first white, yet we <br />May clothe them with faith, and dear honesty, <br />Which God imputes as native purity. <br /> <br />There is no virtue but religion. <br />Wise, valiant, sober, just, are names which none <br />Want, which want not vice-covering discretion. <br /> <br />Seek we then ourselves in ourselves ; for as <br />Men force the sun with much more force to pass, <br />By gathering his beams with a crystal glass, <br /> <br />So we—if we into ourselves will turn, <br />Blowing our spark of virtue—may out-burn <br />The straw which doth about our hearts sojourn. <br /> <br />You know physicians, when they would infuse <br />Into any oil the souls of simples, use <br />Places, where they may lie still warm, to choose. <br /> <br />So works retiredness in us. To roam <br />Giddily and be everywhere, but at home, <br />Such freedom doth a banishment become. <br /> <br />We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may, <br />If we can stock ourselves, and thrive, uplay <br />Much, much dear treasure for the great rent day. <br /> <br />Manure thyself then, to thyself be improved ; <br />And with vain outward things be no more moved, <br />But to know that I love thee and would be loved.<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mr-rowland-woodward/
