Page:The Poems of John Donne - 1896 - Volume 1.djvu/161

For one night’s revels, silk and gold we choose,
But, in long journeys, cloth, and leather use.
Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say
There is best land, where there is foulest way.
Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be,
If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy!
Here needs no spies, nor eunuchs; her commit
40Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmoset.
Like Belgia’s cities the round country drowns,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns,
So doth her face guard her; and so, for thee,
Which forced by business, absent oft must be,
She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night;
Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem white;
Who, though seven years she in the stews had laid,
A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid;
And though in childbed’s labour she did lie,
50Midwives would swear, ’twere but a tympany;
Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less
Than witches, which impossibles confess;
One like none, and liked of none, fittest were;
For things in fashion every man will wear.

l. 41–2. 1633—

When Belgia’s cities the round countries drown
That dirty foulness guards and arms the town

1669—

Like Belgia’s cities when the country is drowned,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns.

l. 45. St. MS., like the clouds, turns day to night.

l. 46. Farmer-Chetham MS, the sun,

l. 49. 1669, child-birth’s