No More Learning

ll. 9-16. I HEARD ME SAY, _&c. _ The construction of this verse has
proved rather a difficulty to editors. I give it as printed by
Chambers and by the Grolier Club editor. Chambers's modernized version
runs:

I heard me say, 'Tell her anon,
That myself', that is you not I,
'Did kill me', and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none;
When I had ripp'd and search'd where hearts should lie,
It killed me again, that I who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.

The Grolier Club version has no inverted commas, and runs:

I heard me say, Tell her anon,
That myself, that's you not I,
Did kill me; and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none.
When I had ripped me and searched where hearts did lie,
It killed me again that I, who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.

In my own version the only departure which I have made from the
punctuation of the 1633 version is the substitution of a semicolon for
a comma after 'lye' (l. 14). If inverted commas are to be used at all
it seems to me they would need to be extended to 'gone' (l. 12) or
to 'lie' (l. 14).
As Donne is addressing the lady throughout it is
difficult to distinguish what he says to her now from what he said on
the occasion imagined.

But the point in which both Chambers and the Grolier Club editor seem
to me in error is in connecting l. 14, _When I had ripp'd, &c. _, with
what follows instead of with the immediately preceding line. There
is no justification for changing the comma after 'none' either to a
semicolon or a full stop. The meaning of ll. 13-14 is, 'But alas! when
I had ripp'd me and search'd where hearts did (i. e. used to) lie, I
could there find none. ' It is so that the Dutch translator understands
the lines:

Maer, oh, ick vond er geen, al scheurd ick mijn geraemt,
En socht door d'oude plaets die 't Hert is toegeraemt.

The last two lines are a comment on the whole incident, the making of
the will and the poet's inability to implement it.

l. 20. _It was intire to none_: i. e.