John Donne - 1 - Love Poems read by Richard burton

Goe, and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envies stinging,
And find
What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.

If thou beest borne to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till age snow white haires on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And sweare
No where
Loves a woman true, and faire.

If thou findst one, let mee know,
Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
Though at next doore wee might meet,
Though shee were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet shee
Will bee
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery ;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.
Full nakedness ! All joys are due to thee ;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys...

John Donne – soldier, lawyer, Member of Parliament, and Dean of St Paul's (and jailbird - for marrying a 16 y.o). But above all, the 'Monarch of Wit', his verse pungent, rough and conversational, intricately argumentative while subtle and knotty , and powerfully physical with a 'sensuous apprehension of thought' (Eliot). He was 'a great visitor of the ladies', possessed of an animal eroticism, and second only to William Shakespeare as a poet of love. A rule-breaker both in life and art, and possibly the greatest dispenser of dazzling wordplay in the language.

A CD rip from a HarperCollins release of 2004, originally recorded by Caedmon in 1958.

Incomparably well done and probably the best thing Burton ever did (eventually I will be uploading the Argo and Redgrave recordings of Donne)

(for interesting comments by John Carey, one of the leading 'authorities' on Donne, type "john donne'' and ''simon schama'' into a search box and you should get a bbc programme from 2009)