Summary

Go and catch a falling star.
Get with child a mandrake root.
Tell me, where all the 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.
--from "Song (Go and Catch a Falling Star)"
From "The Flea," a sly and witty sonnet of seduction, to his celestial and holy "A Hymn to Christ," John Donne's poems capture both love and death, earthly and heavenly passion. Here are his most beautiful songs and sonnets; elegies and epithalamiums (poems in honor of a bride and groom); satires, verse letters, and poems of the Divine--a portrait of Donne's range and magnificence. These more than 65 works include "The Good-Morrow," "Airs and Angels," "A Nocturnal View on St. Lucy's Day," "The Bait," and "Upon the Annunciation and Passion."