John Donne, Present in Absence

[bookburn]

Easiest for me is to follow a simple list of sonnets and songs found
at http://cs1.mcm.edu/~rayb/donne.htm. There is also a site
with commentary at http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/john_donne.htm.
A searchable works site is at http://www.online-literature.com/donne/.


Poems and Sonnets

Air and Angels
The Bait
Break of Day
The Broken Heart
The Canonization
The Dream
The Ecstasy
The Expiration
A Fever
The Flea
The Good Morrow
The Indifferent
The Legacy
Love's Usury
The Message


Present in Absence

Absence, hear thou this protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
Do what thou canst for alteration:
For hearts of truest mettle
Absence doth join, and Time doth Settle.
Who loves a mistress of such quality,
His mind hath found
Affection's ground
Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
To hearts that cannot vary
Absence is present, Time doth tarry.

By absence this good meant I gain,
That I can catch her
Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my brain:
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so enjoy her and none miss her.

[bookburn]

| Present in Absence
|
| Absence, hear thou this protestation
| Against thy strength,
| Distance, and length;
| Do what thou canst for alteration:
| For hearts of truest mettle
| Absence doth join, and Time doth Settle.
| Who loves a mistress of such quality,
| His mind hath found
| Affection's ground
| Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
| To hearts that cannot vary
| Absence is present, Time doth tarry.
|
| By absence this good meant I gain,
| That I can catch her
| Where none can watch her,
| In some close corner of my brain:
| There I embrace and kiss her;
| And so enjoy her and none miss her.

Like many of Shakespeare's sonnets, Donne's Present in Absence plays
on the theme of time, this one concerned with the place of mind in
supporting "Affection's ground/ Beyond time, place, and all
mortality."

Shakespeare also plays on "mind" a significant number of times. I
find 365 instances in the plays and 16 in the sonnets. Here is the
sonnet where "mind" occurs most, 3 times. Similar to Donne's poem, it
deals with presence in absence. bb


Sonnet 113

CXIII.

Since I left you, mine eye is in my MIND;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the MIND no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true MIND thus makes mine eye untrue.

[Robert Stonehouse]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 09:38:23 -0800, "bookburn"

Post by bookburn
Easiest for me is to follow a simple list of sonnets and songs found
at http://cs1.mcm.edu/~rayb/donne.htm. There is also a site
with commentary at http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/john_donne.htm.
A searchable works site is at http://www.online-literature.com/donne/.
Poems and Sonnets
Air and Angels
The Bait
Break of Day
The Broken Heart
The Canonization
The Dream
The Ecstasy
The Expiration
A Fever
The Flea
The Good Morrow
The Indifferent
The Legacy
Love's Usury
The Message
Present in Absence
Absence, hear thou this protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
For hearts of truest mettle
Absence doth join, and Time doth Settle.
Who loves a mistress of such quality,
His mind hath found
Affection's ground
Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
To hearts that cannot vary
Absence is present, Time doth tarry.
By absence this good meant I gain,
That I can catch her
Where none can watch her,
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so enjoy her and none miss her.

Is this one really Donne? Grierson in his edition of Donne
attributed it (without certainty) to John Hoskins because
one manuscript has the initials JH against it. It does not
get a mention in Helen Gardner's edition of the Songs and
Sonnets.

The first publication was in Morley's First Book of Airs
(1600, number 14), but the only copy of that book is damaged
and we have only the first stanza. Then it was printed in A
Poetical Rhapsody (1602) and Grierson listed eight
manuscripts. He printed four stanzas, including the
following as the third:

My senses want their outward motion,
Which now within
Reason doth win,
Redoubled by her secret notion;
Like rich men that take pleasure
In hiding, more than handling, treasure.

(So much from Fellowes' English Madrigal Verse.)

It seems to be an early version of a genre which took the
addressing of an abstraction one step further, by addressing
something purely negative, like Silence or Nothing.

[bookburn]

|
| Is this one really Donne? Grierson in his edition of Donne
| attributed it (without certainty) to John Hoskins because
| one manuscript has the initials JH against it. It does not
| get a mention in Helen Gardner's edition of the Songs and
| Sonnets.
|
| The first publication was in Morley's First Book of Airs
| (1600, number 14), but the only copy of that book is damaged
| and we have only the first stanza. Then it was printed in A
| Poetical Rhapsody (1602) and Grierson listed eight
| manuscripts. He printed four stanzas, including the
| following as the third:
|
| My senses want their outward motion,
| Which now within
| Reason doth win,
| Redoubled by her secret notion;
| Like rich men that take pleasure
| In hiding, more than handling, treasure.
|
| (So much from Fellowes' English Madrigal Verse.)
|
| It seems to be an early version of a genre which took the
| addressing of an abstraction one step further, by addressing
| something purely negative, like Silence or Nothing.

I evidently dropped the ball on this one, posting the first example of
the poem I found. Here is a version that divides into 6-line stanzas,
as you mention, and has the four of them. bb


Present in Absence

Absence, hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
Do what thou canst for alteration:
For hearts of truest mettle
Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.

Who loves a mistress of such quality,
He soon hath found
Affection's ground
Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
To hearts that cannot vary
Absence is Presence, Time doth tarry.

My senses want their outward motion
Which now within
Reason doth win,
Redoubled by her secret notion:
Like rich men that take pleasure
In hiding more than handling treasure.

By absence this good means I gain,
That I can catch her,
Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my brain:
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so I both enjoy and miss her.