Blank Magazine #55//model: Zen Sevastyanova//photographer: Paul de Luna//stylist: Sarah Parlow//source: Fashion Gone Rogue
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through window, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy Pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and our prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
They beams, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thin,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou lefst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All her in one bed lay.
She's all state, and all princes, I
Nothing else is
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou sun art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus:
Thine age asks ease, and since they duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, they sphere.
-"The Sun Rising," John Donne, 1633. (The Broadview Anthology of British Literature)
This poem has quickly risen to one of my absolute favorites. Not only in the flowing beauty of language but in the content matter and the abundant love. I do believe this British Literature class is giving my brain a workout in a rather pleasurable way.
