_at their best
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest.
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest.
John Donne
' From the description he gives
they all seem to operate more or less alike, purging metals and other
bodies from disease.
ll. 7-10. _And as no chymique yet, &c. _ 'My Lord Chancellor gave me
so noble and so ready a dispatch, accompanied with so fatherly advice
that I am now, like an alchemist, delighted with discoveries by the
way, though I attain not mine end. ' To . . . Sir H. G. , Gosse's _Life,
&c. _, ii. 49.
ll. 23-4.
_at their best
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest. _
The punctuation of these lines in _1633-54_ is ambiguous, and Chambers
has altered it wrongly to
Sweetness and wit they are, but Mummy possest.
The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which
is that of the Grolier Club edition.
PAGE =40=. THE FLEA.
I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In
_1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange
choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as
a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by
Huyghens:
De Vloy.
Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen,
Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c. ,
and was selected for special commendation by some of his
correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse:
Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
Thrice-honored Fleas!
they all seem to operate more or less alike, purging metals and other
bodies from disease.
ll. 7-10. _And as no chymique yet, &c. _ 'My Lord Chancellor gave me
so noble and so ready a dispatch, accompanied with so fatherly advice
that I am now, like an alchemist, delighted with discoveries by the
way, though I attain not mine end. ' To . . . Sir H. G. , Gosse's _Life,
&c. _, ii. 49.
ll. 23-4.
_at their best
Sweetnesse and wit, they'are but Mummy, possest. _
The punctuation of these lines in _1633-54_ is ambiguous, and Chambers
has altered it wrongly to
Sweetness and wit they are, but Mummy possest.
The MSS. generally support the punctuation which I have adopted, which
is that of the Grolier Club edition.
PAGE =40=. THE FLEA.
I have restored this poem to the place it occupied in _1633_. In
_1635_ it was placed first of all the _Songs and Sonets_. A strange
choice to our mind, but apparently the poem was greatly admired as
a masterpiece of wit. It is the first of the pieces translated by
Huyghens:
De Vloy.
Slaet acht op deze Vloy, en leert wat overleggen,
Hoe slechten ding het is dat ghy my kont ontzeggen, &c. ,
and was selected for special commendation by some of his
correspondents. Coleridge comments upon it in verse:
Be proud as Spaniards. Leap for pride, ye Fleas!
In natures _minim_ realm ye're now grandees.
Skip-jacks no more, nor civiller skip-johns;
Thrice-honored Fleas!
