Red Roses
A Valediction forbidding mourning by John Donne
chosen by Jennifer
As virtuous men passe mildly away,
And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no.
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T’were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th’earth brings harmes and feares,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refin’d,
That our selves know now what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, hands to misse.
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