The Canonization by John Donne (Text & Paraphrase)

 

The Canonization

by John Donne

(Text & Paraphrase)

 

Text

For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout,

With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

Take you a course, get you a place,

Observe his Honour, or his Grace,

Or the King’s real, or his stamped face

Contemplate; what you will, approve,

So you will let me love.

 

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?

What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

When did my colds a forward spring remove?

When did the heats which my veins fill

Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

Litigious men, which quarrels move,

Though she and I do love.

 

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,

We are tapers too, and at our own cost die,

And we in us find the eagle and the dove,

The phoenix riddle hath more wit

By us; we two being one, are it.

So to one neutral thing both sexes fit

We die and rise the same, and prove

Mysterious by this love.

 

We can die by it, if not live by love.

And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

we’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

As well a well wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

And by these hymns, all shall approve

Us canonized for love:

 

And thus invoke us; ‘You whom reverend love

Made one another’s hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove

Into the glasses of your eyes

(So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize,)

Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

A pattern of your love!

 

Paraphrase

In the first stanza, the poet wants his friend, who tries to discourage him from making love, to keep his mouth shut and allow him to continue his love without any hindrance. The poet says, just as it is useless for him (poet’s friend) to rebuke the poet for suffering from diseases like paralysis or gout or baldness or infirmities like old age or his misfortune, in the same way it is equally futile for him (poet’s friend) to try to dissuade the poet from making love. Instead of wasting time in advising the poet, it would be better for him (poet’s friend) to improve his position by amassing wealth or cultivate his mind by acquiring knowledge or developing a taste for arts. He (poet’s friend) may undertake a course of study or secure a position at the court and thereby get a chance of observing the grace and honour of the king. As a courtier, he (poet’s friend) will watch the real face of the king (see him in his true colour) or he (poet’s friend) may enter business and make money and thus see the king’s image stamped on coins. Let him do whatever he likes but let him (poet’s friend) not disturb the poet in making love to his beloved.

The poet further says, alas, none is harmed by his (the poet’s) love-making. His (the poet’s) sighs have not drowned any merchant ship. His (the poet’s) tears have not caused any floods, the coldness of his (the poet’s) tears has not prolonged the winter season or delayed the advent of spring. The heat of his (the poet’s) passion has not added to the list of persons, who die of plague. Soldiers continue to fight the wars and the lawyers are busy in their litigation. In spite of his (the poet’s) love, the normal life of the world continues as usual (why should then anyone object to his love-making).

The poet says, his friend will call the poet and his beloved whatever he likes (mad or funny), but whatever they are, is the result of their love-making. The friend may call the poet a fly and the poet’s beloved another fly chasing after light. He may call them candles as they both burn themselves out in mutual love. He may compare them with the eagle and the dove because both of them are violent and gentle and prey on each other. Perhaps the legend of the Phoenix would adequately describe the poet and his beloved. Their two sexes match together so perfectly as to form a being of unisex, i.e., after they die, they come to life again in the same form as they were before just as the Phoenix after death arises from its own ashes. Like the mystery of the Phoenix, their mystery of love will command respect.

In the stanza 4, Donne says, if the lovers cannot get immortality by their love, they can at least die for it. The story of their love may not be worthy of tombs and monuments, but at any rate it is good enough for the material of poetry. Their love may not be recorded in volumes of history but it will certainly find mention in sonnets and lyrics. Just as the ashes of great men are preserved in an ornamental urn or in tombs covering an area of half acre, in the same way they will be respected by the world as canonized lovers (saintly lovers). Just as saints are canonized for the love of God, in the same way they will be canonized for the sake of love. Their love is pure and selfless.

In the last stanza he says, that after the lovers have been accepted as saints of love, people will pray for their blessings saying - “You are the saints of love who made each other your pilgrimage, for each of you the other was a world in himself or herself. For others, love was a furious passion but to you love brought peace and bliss. You saw the reflection of the entire world in each other’s eyes. You performed the miracle of contracting the world (within your eyes). In your eyes you saw the countries, towns and courts and thus saw a more meaningful world. Since you are the saints of love, we pray to God to fashion our love on your pattern so that we may also love as you did”.