Song, by John Donne

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are
Or who cleft the devil's foot.
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
How to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
'Til age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou when thou returnst will tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet, do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her
And last until you write your letter
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come,
To two or three.
***
John Donne with his inimitable skepticism of women (people generally, but women in particular). I saw his portrait in the National Portrait Gallery in London and felt immediately that he and I would have been friends if we had ever met. (I've only ever felt that way about the subject of one other painting...one of El Greco's portraits of a young priest.) The poem is titled "Song", so I invented some music for it; I can't write music well enough to write it down, but I can sing it for you if you ask me nicely. ;)