The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, “All here in one bed lay.”

She’s all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

~ John Donne, 1572-1631

First read this love poem at school… and I still love it to this day! It reminds me of so many lazy mornings in bed… and it’s kind of generic so I don’t feel bad that it reminds me of a number of different lazy mornings in bed with ex-boyfriends and lovers. I wouldn’t say I sleep around but I have been in three long term relationships… and had a few shorter ones in between… but then, the poet himself was a reported womaniser who then fell in love and married, but then became a priest when his wife died. Odd how things work out sometimes.

Photo taken on Nusa Lembongan Island at sunrise, 2015. #noedit #nofilter © All rights are reserved