| Herbert J.C. Grierson, ed. (1886–1960). Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the 17th C. 1921. |
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| John Donne |
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| 7. The Anniversarie |
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| ALL Kings, and all their favorites, | |
| All glory of honors, beauties, wits, | |
| The Sun it selfe, which makes times, as they passe, | |
| Is elder by a yeare, now, then it was | |
| When thou and I first one another saw: | 5 |
| All other things, to their destruction draw, | |
| Only our love hath no decay; | |
| This, no to morrow hath, nor yesterday, | |
| Running it never runs from us away, | |
| But truly keepes his first, last, everlasting day. | 10 |
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| Two graves must hide thine and my coarse, | |
| If one might, death were no divorce. | |
| Alas, as well as other Princes, wee, | |
| (Who Prince enough in one another bee,) | |
| Must leave at last in death, these eyes, and eares, | 15 |
| Oft fed with true oathes, and with sweet salt teares; | |
| But soules where nothing dwells but love | |
| (All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove | |
| This, or a love increased there above, | |
| When bodies to their graves, soules from their graves remove. | 20 |
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| And then wee shall be throughly blest, | |
| But wee no more, then all the rest; | |
| Here upon earth, we'are Kings, and none but wee | |
| Can be such Kings, nor of such subjects bee. | |
| Who is so safe as wee? where none can doe | 25 |
| Treason to us, except one of us two. | |
| True and false feares let us refraine, | |
| Let us love nobly, and live, and adde againe | |
| Yeares and yeares unto yeares, till we attaine | |
| To write threescore: this is the second of our raigne. | 30 |
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