BEING THE SHORTEST DAY.
by John Donne
'TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring ;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness ;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have ;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two ; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else ; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown ;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know ; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love ; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am none ; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.
One of my favorite poems, written for St. Lucy's Day, which was believed to be the shortest day and longest night. It's celebrated on Dec. 13, obviously not the winter solstice, but that was before the calendar change and before modern technology could actually determine without fault the shortest day.
And here is my modernization of it, which I did for a poetry journal exercise my senior year of college.
December twenty-first. Midnight.
The sun sighed for seven hours—
no, the sun never existed; his rays
do not reach the dirt; they fizzle and
fade long before they are felt.
All the light in the universe is soaked in a sponge
held captive from the planets.
The thirsty earth drank our life-force to sate itself;
life shrinks to the foot of the bed, pulled by invisible forces;
it is dead, buried, forgotten; but this dead life laughs
compared to me. I am the epitaph on its forgotten tomb.
Learn from me if you plan on loving,
for I am everything that’s dead.
Love, like a cruel god, formed me from
common clay into His image.
A celestial subject from gray crud—
perfection from worn-down rocks sludging on the ground
eroded by time and weather.
He ruined me. Wetted my substance,
reformed my body leaving the surface raw,
lumped carelessly together,
leaving holes and filling them with
lack, blackness, loss—things that do not exist.
Everything else sucks in everything good,
as plants soak in the sunlight—without it, life falters;
I am, by love’s pottery wheel, the tomb
of things which are not. So many times
we threatened the world with our tsunami of sobs;
so many times we became swirling shadows when we
shared passion with other things; so many times we
became corpses, as our absences stole our souls.
But her dea—her dyi—her passing (she does not deserve it)
has destroyed all things of my being.
I was a man, was I not? Now, if I am a beast
I have some reason to remain, some purpose to prevail;
even plants—even slabs of lifeless cement can feel the
icy tentacles of hate grip their hearts, can swim in the
ocean of love. If I were a usual shadow,
a body must block the light.
But I am not; and my heart will beat for no one.
Go and love; the sun gives you light.
Enjoy the summer; snow will soon surround you.
But I will go to her and call this night hers,
since this is the year’s dim midnight.
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