Love's Exchange Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCD EEFFFFF GGHIJJJ KKLLMMM NNOPFFF QQRRHII| LOVE any devil else but you | A |
| Would for a given soul give something too | A |
| At court your fellows every day | B |
| Give th' art of rhyming huntsmanship or play | B |
| For them which were their own before | C |
| Only I have nothing which gave more | C |
| But am alas by being lowly lower | D |
| - | |
| I ask no dispensation now | E |
| To falsify a tear or sigh or vow | E |
| I do not sue from thee to draw | F |
| A non obstante on nature's law | F |
| These are prerogatives they inhere | F |
| In thee and thine none should forswear | F |
| Except that he Love's minion were | F |
| - | |
| Give me thy weakness make me blind | G |
| Both ways as thou and thine in eyes and mind | G |
| Love let me never know that this | H |
| Is love or that love childish is | I |
| Let me not know that others know | J |
| That she knows my paines lest that so | J |
| A tender shame make me mine own new woe | J |
| - | |
| If thou give nothing yet thou 'rt just | K |
| Because I would not thy first motions trust | K |
| Small towns which stand stiff till great shot | L |
| Enforce them by war's law condition not | L |
| Such in Love's warfare is my case | M |
| I may not article for grace | M |
| Having put Love at last to show this face | M |
| - | |
| This face by which he could command | N |
| And change th' idolatry of any land | N |
| This face which wheresoe'er it comes | O |
| Can call vow'd men from cloisters dead from tombs | P |
| And melt both poles at once and store | F |
| Deserts with cities and make more | F |
| Mines in the earth than quarries were before | F |
| - | |
| For this Love is enraged with me | Q |
| Yet kills not if I must example be | Q |
| To future rebels if th' unborn | R |
| Must learn by my being cut up and torn | R |
| Kill and dissect me Love for this | H |
| Torture against thine own end is | I |
| Rack'd carcasses make ill anatomies | I |
John Donne
(1)
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Love's Exchange is a poem by John Donne. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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