Because it is Saint Lawrence today – San Lorenzo in my corner of the world – a night to go stargazing, to “catch” Perseids, to recite star-themed poetry…

And I know, John Donne’s Song isn’t exactly star-themed – but I like the string of impossibilities, the playful sense of quest with a falling star on the lid…

Go and catch a falling star,

    Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

    Or who cleft the devil’s foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

            And find

            What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’st born to strange sights,

    Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

    Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

            And swear,

            No where

Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,

    Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

    Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

            Yet she

            Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Hm, yes. Perhaps I like it better before the last stanza – when it all turns sour and misogynistic… I’m always wary or reading too much autobiography in poems (unless I have to adapt them for the stage), but I think I’d rather imagine Donne writing this after a spat with a woman, rather than out of cold theory. “I’ve written you a song, dearest…”

Salva