the penultimate

Completely undeterred by the fact that no one else is getting into the spirit of this, I sally forth, posting more poems.

Today's, the second from the last, is one of the first poems I learned that I liked. I studied it in a Grade 12 lit class the year I went to KSS, and was totally blown away by the fact that something like this existed. Let's just say it's not my Aunt Iris's (or my step-grandfather's mother's step-father's uncle's farm musings, which my grandma tried to make me post yesterday but I declined).

This guy (the narrator, assumedly Donne) is TOTALLY hitting on a girl, trying to get it on with her despite her early 17th C sensibilities. But it's not like today's brainless pick-up lines - he's convincing her (or trying to) by using a flea as bait. Since the flea bit them both, and their blood is mingled in its little flea belly, they're practically married anyway (he says). When that doesn't work - she squishes it- he argues that murder is much more sinful than sex, so come on already!

Needless to say, it opened up a whole new world in terms of what poetry is capable of . . . and men as well.

The Flea
By John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.'
Tis true ; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.