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Home  »  The Poems of John Donne  »  Upon Mr. Thomas Coryat’s Crudities

John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896.

Commendatory Verses

Upon Mr. Thomas Coryat’s Crudities

OH, to what height will love of greatness drive

Thy learned spirit, sesqui-superlative?

Venice’ vast lake thou’st seen, and wouldst seek then

Some vaster thing, and found’st a courtesan.

That inland sea having discover’d well,

A cellar-gulf, where one might sail to hell

From Heidelberg, thou longed’st to see; and thou

This book, greater than all, producest now.

Infinite work! which doth so far extend,

That none can study it to any end.

’Tis no one thing; it is not fruit nor root,

Nor poorly limited with head or foot.

If man be therefore man, because he can

Reason and laugh, thy book doth half make man.

One-half being made, thy modesty was such,

That thou on th’ other half wouldst never touch.

When wilt thou be at full, great lunatic?

Not till thou exceed the world? canst thou be like

A prosperous nose-born wen, which sometimes grows

To be far greater than the mother-nose?

Go then, and as to thee, when thou didst go,

Münster did towns, and Gesner authors show,

Mount now to Gallo-Belgicus; appear

As deep a statesman, as a gazetteer.

Homely and familiarly, when thou comest back,

Talk of Will Conqueror, and Prester Jack.

Go, bashful man, lest here thou blush to look

Upon the progress of thy glorious book,

To which both Indies sacrifices send.

The West sent gold, which thou didst freely spend,

Meaning to see ’t no more, upon the press.

The East sends hither her deliciousness,

And thy leaves must embrace what comes from thence,

The myrrh, the pepper, and the frankincense.

This magnifies thy leaves; but if they stoop

To neighbour wares, when merchants do unhoop

Voluminous barrels; if thy leaves do then

Convey these wares in parcels unto men;

If for vast tons of currants and of figs,

Of medicinal and aromatic twigs,

Thy leaves a better method do provide,

Divide to pounds, and ounces subdivide;

If they stoop lower yet, and vent our wares,

Home-manufactures, to thick popular fairs;

If omni-pregnant there upon warm stalls

They hatch all wares for which the buyer calls;

Then thus thy leaves we justly may commend,

That they all kind of matter comprehend.

Thus thou, by means which th’ ancients never took,

A Pandect makest, and universal book.

The bravest heroës, for public good,

Scattered in divers lands their limbs and blood;

Worst malefactors, to whom men are prize,

Do public good, cut in anatomies;

So will thy book in pieces for a lord,

Which casts at Portescue’s, and all the board

Provide whole books; each leaf enough will be

For friends to pass time, and keep company.

Can all carouse up thee? no, thou must fit

Measures and fill out for the half-pint wit.

Some shall wrap pills, and save a friend’s life so;

Some shall stop muskets, and so kill a foe.

Thou shalt not ease the critics of next age

So much, as once their hunger to assuage;

Nor shall wit-pirates hope to find thee lie

All in one bottom, in one library.

Some leaves may paste strings there in other books,

And so one may, which on another looks,

Pilfer, alas, a little wit from you;

But hardly much; and yet I think this true;

As Sibyl’s was, your book is mystical,

For every piece is as much worth as all.

Therefore mine impotency I confess;

The healths, which my brain bears, must be far less;

Thy giant wit o’erthrows me; I am gone;

And rather than read all, I would read none.