No More Learning

Enjoy by death such passage into lyfe
As frees thee quyte from thoughts of worldly stryfe.
WM. GOODERE.

Camden transcribes his epitaph:

An ill yeare of a Goodyere us bereft,
Who gon to God much lacke of him here left;
Full of good gifts, of body and of minde,
Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kinde.

The Epitaph is probably by the same author as the _Verses_, a nephew
perhaps. Sir Henry's son predeceased him.

PAGE =183=, l. 1. It is not necessary to change 'the past' of
_1633-54_ to 'last' with _1669_. 'The past year' is good English for
'last year'.

PAGE =184=, l. 27. _Goe; whither? Hence; &c. _ My punctuation, which
is that of some MSS.
, follows Donne's usual arrangement in dialogue,
dividing the speeches by semicolons. Chambers's textual note
misrepresents the earlier editions. He attributes to _1633-54_
the reading, 'Go whither? hence you get'. But they have all 'Goe,
whither? ', and _1633_ has 'hence;' _1635-54_ drop this semicolon.
In _1669_ the text runs, 'Goe, whither. Hence you get,' &c. The
semicolon, however, is better than the full stop after 'Hence', as the
following clause is expansive and explanatory: 'Anywhere will do so
long as it is out of this. In such cases as yours, to forget is itself
a gain. '

l. 34. The modern editors, by dropping the comma after 'asham'd', have
given this line the opposite meaning to what Donne intended. I have
therefore, to avoid ambiguity, inserted one before. Sir Henry Goodyere
is not to be asham'd to imitate his hawk, but is, _through shame_,
to emulate that noble bird by growing more sparing of extravagant
display. 'But the sporte which for that daie Basilius would
principally shewe to Zelmane, was the mounting at a Hearne, which
getting up on his wagling wings with paine .