Since I am comming to that Holy roome,
Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy Musique; As I come
I tune the Instrument here at the dore,
And what I must doe then, thinke here before.
JOHN DONNE: from ‘Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse’
Donne’s father was an ironmonger (hence, perhaps, the frequent references to metallurgy and alchemy in his poetry) and his mother the daughter of John Heywood, the dramatist. She was also a relative of Sir Thomas More, and brought Donne up as a Catholic. He studied in Oxford at Hart Hall (later Hertford College), favoured by Catholics because it possessed no chapel, which would have attracted the attention of the Protestant authorities. His religion debarred him from taking a degree, and after a period of travel on the continent he entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1592. In 1593 his younger brother Henry was arrested for harbouring a Catholic priest, and died in prison. It was about this time that Donne renounced his Catholic faith. He sailed with Essex on the Cadiz expedition of 1596, and with Ralegh in 1597 to hunt for Spanish treasure in the Azores. During the latter voyage he sent his verse-letters, ‘The Calm’ and ‘The Storm’, to Christopher Brooke, a friend at the Inns of Court. Back in London he became chief secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.
It was not long before he met Ann More, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Sir George More, Lady Egerton’s brother. He became a Member of Parliament for Brackley (one of Egerton’s pocket boroughs) in 1601. Donne’s secret marriage to Ann More caused him great distress: Ann’s father railed, Donne lost his job, and the couple suffered disgrace and poverty. It was not until 1609 that there was a reconciliation. Donne suffered acute depressions of the mind, and his Biathanatos (1606, but not published till after his death), a partial justification of suicide, probably reflects his own feelings that are wonderfully captured in the melancholy anonymous portrait of the poet, dated c.1595, that hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery. He travelled in Europe during 1605, and eventually settled in Mitcham. Attracted by Dean Morton’s anti-Jesuit writings and still appalled at the fate of his younger brother, he wrote his Pseudo-Martyr, in which he encouraged Catholics to take the oath of allegiance to James. The King, who also approved of Ignatius His Conclave (1611), a satire on the Jesuits, urged Donne to enter the Church. It was at this time that he started to compose the Holy Sonnets, which reflect his own shaken faith. He and his wife now settled in a small house in Drury Lane. She bore him eleven children, and his struggle to support them contributed to the gradual darkening of his mind. He wrote a number of occasional verses to influential individuals, but was not rewarded with any preferment. He took holy orders in January 1615, was appointed a royal chaplain by James I and almost immediately gained a reputation as an exceptional preacher. The following year he was appointed Reader in Divinity at Lincoln’s Inn. He held livings at Keyston, Sevenoaks and Blunham.
Having settled into his new career, Donne suffered what was perhaps the harshest blow of his life: his wife died at the age of thirty-three, after giving birth to a stillborn son. Izaak Walton, Donne’s first biographer, records that he was henceforth ‘crucified to the world’. In 1619 he spent several months, in the company of Viscount Doncaster, travelling through Germany in an attempt to mediate between the Catholic Emperor of Germany and Protestant subjects in Bohemia. The following year he was made Dean of St Paul’s. As Donne’s health began to fail, he began his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1524), a volume of prayers and meditations, of which the most celebrated, No. 17, begins: ‘Perchance hee for whom this Bell tolls’. (See Rainier’s Cycle for Declamation.) After the death of James I, Donne preached his first sermon before Charles I. As the Plague ravaged London, he moved to more salubrious Chelsea, and wrote increasingly of suffering in his sermons. His health deteriorated and he gave his last sermon – on ‘Death’s Duel’ – before the King on the first Friday of Lent in 1631. He died on 31 March 1631. Walton tells how he had his portrait drawn wearing a shroud and standing on a funeral urn. The sculpture (1631) by Nicholas Stone in St Paul’s Cathedral was made from this painting, and set on foot a macabre fashion for shrouded effigies standing up.
To many people, Donne was a divided persona: Doctor John Donne, Dean of St Paul’s, one of the greatest preachers of the age; and Jack Donne, the author of vicious satires and some of the most sexually explicit love poems in English. The truth is that on taking holy orders at the age of forty-three, he re-directed the ardour that had informed his erotic poetry into a fervent quest for union with God. Whereas Donne’s secular poetry often explores his feelings towards women, his religious verse, and especially the Holy Sonnets, express his love for God as a lover might for his mistress, or a woman for her lover – but the self-confidence of the amorous verse is now replaced by a fear of failure.
The somewhat convoluted syntax of Donne’s poems and the complexity of his metaphysical conceits have limited the number of entirely successful settings of his verse. There were, however, several composers who set his poems during his lifetime or shortly after his death, including Alfonso Ferrabosco II (‘The expiration’), William Corkine (‘Breake of day’ and ‘The baite’ in the Second Booke of Airs, 1612), Thomas Ford (‘Lamentations of Jeremy’ for three voices) and John Coprario (‘The message’). The first collection of his verse was issued in 1633, two years after his death.
So, so, leaue off, this last lamenting kisse,
Which sucks two soules, and vapours2 Both away,
Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this,
And let our selues benight3 our happy day,
We aske none leaue to love, nor will we owe
Any so cheape a death as saying goe.
Goe, goe, and if that word haue not quite kild thee,
Ease me with death by bidding me goe too.
O, if it haue let my word worke on me,
And a iust office on a murderer doe.
Except4 it be too late to kill me so,
Being double dead, going and bidding goe.
Wilt thou forgive that sinne2 where I begunne,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sinnes, through which I runne,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.3
Wilt thou forgive that sinne by which I’have wonne
Others to sinne? and, made my sinne their doore?
Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I do shunne
A yeare, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne
My last thread,4 I shall perish on the shore;
Sweare by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou haste done,
I feare no more.
(Hilton)
Send home my long strayd eyes to mee,
Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee;
Yet since there they have learn’d1 such ill,
Such forc’d fashions2
And false passions,
That they be
Made by thee
Fit for no good sight, keep them still.
Send home my harmlesse heart againe,
Which no unworthy thought could staine;
But if it be taught by thine
To make jestings
Of protestings,
And crosse3 both
Word and oath,
Keepe it, for then ’tis none of mine.
Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know, and see thy lyes,
And may laugh and joy, when thou
Art in anguish
And dost languish
For some one
That will none4,
Or prove as false as thou art now.
Britten was one of the most literary of all song composers. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with Schumann’s statement in an article on the songs of W. H. Veit: ‘Weshalb also nach mittelmäßigen Gedichten greifen, was sich immer an der Musik rächen muß? Einen Kranz von Musik um ein wahres Dichterhaupt schlingen – nichts Schöneres; aber ihn an ein Alltagsgesicht verschwenden, wozu die Mühe?’ (‘Why choose mediocre poems, when this will always take revenge on the music? To braid a wreath around a true poet’s brow – nothing more beautiful; but to waste it on an everyday face, why bother?’). The Holy Sonnets of John Donne are an early example of Britten’s sophisticated literary taste which drew him to such diverse and wonderful poets as Auden, Beddoes, Blake, Brecht, Emily Brontë, Burns, Clare, Coleridge, Crabbe, Dekker, Fletcher, Goethe, Graves, Hardy, Herbert, Herrick, Hölderlin, Hopkins, Hugo, Jonson, Keats, Longfellow, Lowell, MacNeice, Michelangelo, Middleton, Milton, Moore, Nash, Owen, Pushkin, Quarles, Racine, Rimbaud, Christina Rossetti, Shakespeare, Shelley, Sitwell, Soutar, Tennyson, Vaughan, Verlaine, Virgil, Wordsworth, Yeats and Yevtushenko. The range and quality are breathtaking, and there is a sense in which Britten’s choice of texts constitutes a most original kind of autobiography.
Britten’s The Holy Sonnets of John Donne were completed a mere three weeks after the composer and Yehudi Menuhin had given two concerts on 27 July 1945 to the liberated survivors at Belsen after the end of the Second World War. Britten had been reading Donne’s poetry for at least two years (there is an incomplete sketch for voice and piano of ‘Stay, O Sweet, and do not rise’ that probably dates from 1941 during the composer’s sojourn in America). In a letter to Peter Pears of 6 August 1945, Britten writes rather maliciously: ‘But it’s heaven to deal with Donne instead of Montagu!’ (the librettist of Peter Grimes). Britten considered ending The Holy Sonnets of John Donne with an Epilogue (‘Perchance he for whom this bell tolls’) but eventually discarded the sketch. He and Pears gave the first performance of the work on 22 November 1945, and the critic from The Times wrote:
In Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnets’ he had burning words to fire him. Four of the nine stood out at the first hearing; the first, ‘O my black soul’, with its headlong plunge into passionate sound; the sixth, a love song that sweetened the astringency of the seventeenth century with a breath of Schubert; the familiar ‘At the round earth’s imagined corners’, with the directness of its own trumpet call, and the final funeral march, a superb conception to match the words ‘Death, be not proud’.
Oh my blacke Soule! now thou art summoned
By sicknesse, deaths herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turne to whence hee is fled,
Or like a thiefe, which till deaths doome1 be read,
Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison;
But damn’d and hal’d to execution,2
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lacke;
But who shall give thee that grace to beginne?
Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sinne;
Or wash thee in Christs blood, which hath this might
That being red, it dyes red soules to white.
Batter my heart, three person’d God1; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne2, to’another due,
Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,3
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue,
Yet dearely’I love you, and would be lov’d faine4,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie,
Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall5 mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
(Adams)6
O might those sighes and teares returne againe
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourne with some fruit, as I have mourn’d in vaine;
In mine Idolatry what showres of raine
Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?
That sufferance1 was my sinne; now I repent;
’Cause I did suffer I must suffer paine.
Th’hydroptique2 drunkard, and night-scouting3 thiefe,
The itchy Lecher, and selfe tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joyes, for reliefe
Of comming ills. To (poore) me is allow’d
No ease; for, long, yet vehement griefe hath beene
Th’effect and cause, the punishment and sinne.
Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begott
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vowes, and in devotione1.
As humorous2 is my contritione3
As my prophane Love, and as soone forgott:
As ridlingly distemper’d4, cold and hott,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and to day
In prayers, and flattering speaches I court God:
To morrow I quake with true feare of his rod.
So my devout fitts come and go away
Like a fantastique Ague5: save that here
Those are my best dayes, when I shake with feare.
What if this present were the worlds last night?
Marke in my heart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucified1, and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright,
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing2 light,
Blood fills his frownes, which from his pierc’d head fell.
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,
Which pray’d forgiveness for his foes fierce spight?
No, no; but as in my idolatrie
I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty, of pitty, foulnesse onely is
A signe of rigour: so I say to thee3,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign’d,
This beauteous forme assures a pitious minde.
Since she whom I lov’d1 hath payd her last debt
To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her Soule early into heaven ravished,
Wholly on heavenly things my mind is sett.
Here the admyring her my mind did whett
To seeke thee God; so streames do shew their head2;
But although I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
A holy thirsty dropsy3 melts mee yett.
But why should I begg more Love, when as thou
Dost wooe my soule for hers; offring all thine:
And dost not only feare least I allow
My Love to Saints and Angels things divine,
But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt4
Least the World, Fleshe, yea Devill putt thee out.
At the round earths imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpetts, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never tast deaths woe.
But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
’Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
When wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent; for that’s as good
As if thou’hadst seal’d my pardon, with thy blood.
(Parry)
Thou hast made me, and shall thy worke decay?
Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I runne to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dimme eyes any way,
Despaire behind, and death before doth cast
Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sinne in it, which it t’wards hell doth weigh1;
Onely thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe;
But our old subtle foe2 so tempteth me,
That not one houre my selfe I can sustaine;
Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like Adamant3 draw mine iron heart.
Death1 be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
[…] Wee cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to sticke on in December. […] There are of them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their owne seasons for al these, and he that knows not them shall starve before that gift come. […] Reward is the season of one man, and importunitie of another; feare the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of one man, and naturall affection of another; and hee that knowes not their seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits. […]
[…] In the wombe of the earth, wee diminish and when shee is deliverd of us, our grave opened for another, wee are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blowne away with prophane dust, with every wind.
Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.1 The Bell doth toll for him that thinkes it doth; Morieris. […] Who casts not up his Eye to the Sunne when it rises? but who takes off his Eye from a Comet when that breakes out? Who bends not his eare to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? Morieris. But who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a peece of himselfe out of this world?
Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were, Morieris. Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde, Morieris; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. Nunc, lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.