No More Learning

Of the two poems added in _1649_ the lines _Upon Mr. Thomas Coryats
Crudities_ are of course Donne's. They appeared with his name in his
lifetime, and Donne is one of the friends mentioned by Coryat in his
letters from India. _The Token_ (4 on the list) may or may not be
Donne's. It is found in several, but no very good, manuscripts.
Its wit is quite in Donne's style, though not absolutely beyond the
compass of another. The poems which the younger Donne added in _1650_
are in much the same position. 'He that cannot chose but love' (5
on the list) is a trifle, whoever wrote it. 'The heavens rejoice in
motion' (10 on the list) is in a much stronger strain of paradox, and
if not Donne's is by an ambitious and witty disciple. If genuine, it
is strange that it did not find its way into more collections. It is
found in _A10_, where a few of Donne's poems are given with others by
Roe, Hoskins, and other wits of his circle. It is also, however, given
in _JC_, a manuscript containing in its first part few poems that are
not demonstrably genuine. As things stand, the balance of evidence is
in favour of Donne's authorship.

Besides the _Elegies XVIII_ and _XIX_, which are Donne's, as we have
seen, and the _Satyre_ 'Sleep next Society', which is not Donne's, the
edition of 1669 prefixed to the song _Breake of Day_ a fresh stanza:

Stay, O sweet, and do not rise.

It appears in the same position in _S96_, but is given as a separate
poem in _A25_, _C_, _O'F_, and _P_.
It certainly has no connexion with
Donne's poem, for the metre is entirely different and the strain of
the poetry less metaphysical.

The separate stanza was a favourite one in Song-Books of the
seventeenth century. It was printed apparently for the first time in
1612, in _The First Set of Madrigals and Motets of five Parts: apt for
Viols and Voices. Newly composed by Orlando Gibbons_. Here it begins

Ah, deare hart why doe you rise?

In the same year it was printed in _A Pilgrimes Solace. Wherein is
contained Musicall Harmonie of 3, 4 and 5 parts, to be sung and plaid
with the Lute and Viols. By John Dowland. _ The stanza begins

Sweet stay awhile, why will you rise?

Mr. Chambers conjectures that the affixing of Dowland's initials to
the verse in some collection led to Donne being credited with it,
which is quite likely; but we are not sure that Dowland wrote it, and
the common theme appears to have drawn the poems together. In _The
Academy of Complements, Wherein Ladies, Gentlewomen, Schollers,
and Strangers may accomodate their Courtly practice with gentile
Ceremonies, Complemental amorous high expressions, and Formes of
speaking or writing of Letters most in fashion_ (1650) the verse is
connected with a variation of the first stanza of Donne's poem so as
to make a consistent song:

Lie still, my dear, why dost thou rise?
The light that shines comes from thine eyes.
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay or else my joys will die,
And perish in their infancy.
'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?