WHEN I am dead, and
doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of
love
Will thorough all their
senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre,
Poor victories ; but if you dare be brave,
And pleasure in your conquest
have,
First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain ;
And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain ;
And like a Goth and Vandal
rise,
Deface records and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And without such advantage kill me then,
For I could muster up, as well as you,
My giants, and my witches too,
Which are vast Constancy and Secretness ;
But these I neither look for nor profess ;
Kill me as woman, let me die
As a mere man ; do you but try
Your passive valour, and you shall find then,
Naked you have odds enough of any man.
Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 67-68.
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