【07】The Good-Morrow—早安

Dana Gioia

Here's a classic Renaissance love lyricrecited by David Mason. 

David Mason

I'm going to read a poem by John Donne.It’s called “The Good-Morrow.” It's about waking up with your lover. This is apoem I'm particularly fond of, and I actually used to annoy girlfriends byreciting it to them when I was a young man. Here it is: 

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned tillthen?

But sucked on country pleasures,childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fanciesbe.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dreamof thee. 

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sightscontrols,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds havegone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds haveshown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one,and is one. 

My face in thine eye, thine in mineappears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without decliningwest?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, nonecan die.