The Canonization
John Donne
1572 to 1631
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Call her one, me another fly,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
Mysterious by this love.
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
When did the heats which my veins fill
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
Observe his honor, or his grace,
We can die by it, if not live by love,
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?
By us; we two being one, are it.
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
Though she and I do love.
Into the glasses of your eyes
So you will let me love.
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Made one another's hermitage;
And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
A pattern of your love!"
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
Us canonized for Love.
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
That they did all to you epitomize)
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
Or the king's real, or his stampèd face
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,