I do not read poems, I read people. In poets’ words, I meet, greet, grin, shudder, craving their company in the lonely cell of self.

Most breathing acquaintances show little of ourselves. We want others to see us as we want to be seen. We flaunt, flirt, flatter, flay, depending on the effect we’re aiming for, editing out aspects that don’t fit. This is less deception than self-defense. We all have secrets which humiliate. If you haven’t, how sad, you haven’t lived much of a life.

The more memorable the poem, the more bravely it confesses. Our words give us away. Words that lie or dodge or mislead were composed by a liar, dodger, misleader. A poem is never about what it’s about, it’s about its maker. Why are they telling me this in this way? What do they want me to think?

Alone with a poem I am never alone. I am having an affair, a sweaty grapple with a needy spirit. There’s no reason to write a serious poem unless you need to. Any honest poem is a message in a bottle, cast from a desert island onto a stony sea.

John Donne is the most disquieting of intimates.

Donne (1572-1631) and Will Shakespeare (1564-1616), living in the same time and place, must have known each other – London’s literary set wasn’t that numerous – but even if they met, they wouldn’t have clicked. Will was a commoner and player, a working stiff, not a university man, comparatively crude. His plays, while they had merit, also appealed to the hoi polloi, tut-tut.

Donne was well-born, extremely educated, courtly, ambitious and a genius (he completed his Oxbridge education age 12, though because his family were Roman Catholics couldn’t take a degree). His often-spicy poems were circulated privately in manuscript so he wouldn’t run afoul the thought police. Only real smarties could appreciate his brilliance. Will could have, of course, but such poems wouldn’t have been his cup of tea, too witty and snooty.

Will was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. His career was a triumph. He could feel grand about it. Jack Donne, by common consent the smartest guy in the room, kept making tactical mistakes (like marrying without permission). His career was a disappointment. He felt bad about it. (Donne, as Dean of Saint Paul’s, kept an open coffin in his study, his getaway car.)

In “The Good Morrow”, we feel Donne in his bristly brilliance. Such roiling passion, such adroit wit, such straining superiority.

The poem merits its fame. Few love poems ache so. The poet worships his very smart lady. (The poem’s addressed to her – and anyone who could fathom it had to be smart.) Overlook for an instant the poem’s extreme craft, exquisite music and technical perfections – this guy really was brilliant – and listen to the fulminous passion pulsing beneath. Theirs is a one-of-a-kind never-before love that banishes the world’s disrespect and diminishments. No one’s every loved like this! These two souls are fearless, they subdue the world around them, they make this “little room an everywhere.” Let the “sea-discoverers” – the swashbucklers of their hour – journey to the ends of earth; let mapmakers, heroic in their way, draw new worlds; this pair beats them all, no contest. Hurray!

Beats even death itself. For here we are, love, reflected in each other’s eyes, and these two hemispheres make up a world entire, and will forever. Our love feels like a million million bucks! How can disappointments or disparagements bruise us when we’re in possession of everywhere and always!

Poignancy, passion, pathos, brilliance. Break my heart.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published*The Good Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

PS. You guys are such brainiacs. Not one but two scolded me for yesterday confusing Archilochus and Heraclites. Playing to a tough crowd one’s gotta watch one’s step! Thanks for the assist.