The tone in this lyric is tricky. Not because it’s ambiguous: the anxiety and grief are palpable throughout. No, the tone is tricky because even in the keening pitch of sorrow, the poet sends the emotion through very tangled syntax that demands careful attention, and such syntactic manipulation seems somehow antithetical to a rush of emotion. The result is a curious and difficult mix of cerebration, terror, and frantic love, with a dash of anger at the beloved for the death she might well suffer soon.

A curiously and complexly wrought poem, then, that’s also nearly beside itself with emotion. It may reflect Donne’s grief over his wife Anne’s illness, or it may be written for someone else at another time in his life. The fever in question could be the result of childbirth, or infection, or any number of other mishaps. It could all be a dramatic construct, no less authentic for being fictional. But something tells me there’s biography here: “A Feaver,” by John Donne.

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This one’s a toughie. As in “Sweetest Love,” Donne imagines every parting as a kind of death. True to form, he takes that “death” as another chance to analyze what it means to be in love. Parting is a kind of test case, then, that allows him a peculiarly intense opportunity for reflection. And the reflection in this case turns to the confusion of selves within a love: confusion in the sense that the two lovers become one, and in the sense that a certain wounding loss of identity also occurs. Donne’s cerebrations are hard to follow, but with some patience and persistence the reader may find that Donne describes very well the power and vulnerability that accompany love. One feels wholly given over to something greater than oneself. At the same time, one feels disintegrated, open to pain and betrayal, almost helpless. There’s more than a hint of bitterness at the end of the poem, but it comes in so late that the earlier analysis (and, oddly, exuberance) doesn’t get eclipsed by it, at least for me.

Here’s “The Legacie,” by John Donne.

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Interesting survey; I’ll be curious to see the final results in July. Apparently one can change one’s responses all the way up until the end. I don’t believe I’ve seen that feature in a survey before. (Perhaps my survey chops are just not what they need to be.)

You can take the survey yourself by clicking on the graphic above.

I should try to find a musical setting of this poem, if not for the podcast (it’s not “podsafe” music, I’m sure) then for the class I’ll teach in the fall. For all his intellectual fireworks, Donne can be intensely lyrical, as I hope my reading demonstrates. He’s never just lyrical, or not for long, but the moments of verbal sweetness do persuade me that he chooses his more angular, dramatic style deliberately.

This is a love poem that returns to Donne’s favorite playground by the end: the mind, both in the sense of “intellect” and of “imagination. ” This poet might say, “I think, therefore I love.” Or perhaps it’s the other way ’round. In any event, I hope you enjoy “Song: Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go.”

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