) we
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
John Donne
55.
l. 11. _Wright then. _ The version of this poem in _W_ is probably
made from Donne's autograph. One of his characteristic spellings is
'wright' for 'write'. The _Losely Manuscripts_ (ed. Kempe, 1836), in
which some of Donne's letters are printed from the originals, show
this spelling on every page. It is perhaps worth noting that the
irregular past participle similarly spelt, i. e. 'wrought', has
occasionally misled editors by its identity of form with the past
participle of the verb 'work', which has 'gh' legitimately. Thus Mr.
Beeching (_A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel and Michael
Drayton_, 1899) prints:
Read in my face a volume of despairs,
The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe,
Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,
Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.
Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'.
In Professor Saintsbury's _Patrick Carey_ (Caroline Poets, II.
) we
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
i. e. 'wrote'.
See also Donne's _The Litanie_, i. p. 342, l. 112.
PAGE =208=. TO M^r C. B.
Pretty certainly Christopher Brooke, to whom _The Storme_ and _The
Calme_, are addressed. Chambers takes 'the Saint of his affection' to
be Donne's wife, and dates the letter after 1600. But surely the
last two lines would not have been written of a wife. They are in the
conventional tone of the poet to his cruel Mistress. If Ann More is
the 'Saint' referred to, she was not yet Donne's wife.
l. 11. _Wright then. _ The version of this poem in _W_ is probably
made from Donne's autograph. One of his characteristic spellings is
'wright' for 'write'. The _Losely Manuscripts_ (ed. Kempe, 1836), in
which some of Donne's letters are printed from the originals, show
this spelling on every page. It is perhaps worth noting that the
irregular past participle similarly spelt, i. e. 'wrought', has
occasionally misled editors by its identity of form with the past
participle of the verb 'work', which has 'gh' legitimately. Thus Mr.
Beeching (_A Selection from the Poetry of Samuel Daniel and Michael
Drayton_, 1899) prints:
Read in my face a volume of despairs,
The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe,
Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,
Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.
Here 'wrought' should be 'wrote', used, as frequently, for 'written'.
In Professor Saintsbury's _Patrick Carey_ (Caroline Poets, II.
) we
read:
Who writ this song would little care
Although at the end his name were wrought.
i. e. 'wrote'.
See also Donne's _The Litanie_, i. p. 342, l. 112.
PAGE =208=. TO M^r C. B.
Pretty certainly Christopher Brooke, to whom _The Storme_ and _The
Calme_, are addressed. Chambers takes 'the Saint of his affection' to
be Donne's wife, and dates the letter after 1600. But surely the
last two lines would not have been written of a wife. They are in the
conventional tone of the poet to his cruel Mistress. If Ann More is
the 'Saint' referred to, she was not yet Donne's wife.
