In awe of a poet

I have done one braver thing

Than all the Worthies did,

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t'impart

The skill of specular stone,

When he which can have learn'd the art

To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,

Others (because no more

Such stuff to work upon, there is)

Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who colour loves, and skin,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also do

Virtue attir'd in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the He and She;

And if this love, though placed so,

From profane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they do, deride:

Then you have done a braver thing

Than all the Worthies did;

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

This is John Donne's song 'The Undertaking', which blew me away. Donne served as secretary to the future Lord Chancellor Thomas Egerton during the last years of Elizabeth I's reign in the late 16th and early 17th century. He had a brilliant career ahead of him, but he lost it all when he secretly married Lady Egerton's niece and was subsequently fired and imprisoned for a while when it all came out. After some years of scraping by, he found employment in the church and eventually worked his way up to become Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. After the death of his wife, he dedicated himself completely to the church and died a famed preacher, having made a name for himself in the pulpit.

Donne poems and songs are a strange mixture of highly erotic love poems in which he praises women, their bodies and sex in general - which he sees as one of the highest attainable delights in the universe and by definition divine - and devoted praises of God and the trinity. In his poems, you feel him professing his love for his wife as well as for the godhead and this makes into a devoted religious leader as well as a mortal lover and family man (they had 11 children before she died giving birth to the 12th).

This song struck me because it expresses the hurt he must have felt when he wanted to share his love with the world but was forced to keep his marriage a secret from fear of retribution of her family. It touched me in a way and filled me with the sadness he must have experienced. I am exactly sure when this piece of art was created but it seems to me that he was at a point in his life where they were still successfully keeping the marriage a secret and they did not yet know what the future had in store for them. It is a tragic moment, only to be ended with the joy of being able to openly profess his love combined with the loss of all his prospects and confrontation with poverty.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my enjoyment of having discovered this poet. There are other things that have happened this month. Jorryt & Lilian came by, as did Bart & Tineke and Pieter & Nicole after their long trip through South America. For more info on what we did together, I refer you to Olaf's weblog. For now, I have to go teach one more class and then we are off to tour the Netherlands (Randstad only) for the weekend!