THE GOOD-MORROW

An uplifting poem from one of England`s greatest poets. Love doesn't need a day set aside like St. Platitude's day on the 14th February. We are individuals, we are lovers, we are not homogenised cartons of milk on a supermarket shelf. Lovers don't`need to be told to celebrate love - this is done naturally 365/6 days a year. Still, I suppose for the manufacturers of sugary sentimentalised tat , Dr Seuss verse-like cards and the suppliers of red roses - enough to give one diabetes at 100 yards, it affords them to celebrate their love: love of money. End of missive!

The Good-Morrow

BY JOHN DONNE

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.


And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.


My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.