A Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,

   Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

       The sun is spent, and now his flasks

       Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

          The world's whole sap is sunk;

   The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,

   Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,

   Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,

   Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

  Study me then, you who shall lovers be

  At the next world, that is, at the next spring;

      For I am every dead thing,

      In whom Love wrought new alchemy.

         For his art did express

  A quintessence even from nothingness,

  From dull privations, and lean emptiness;

  He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot

  Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

  All others, from all things, draw all that's good,

  Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;

      I, by Love's limbec, am the grave

      Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood

         Have we two wept, and so

  Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

  To be two chaoses, when we did show

  Care to aught else; and often absences

  Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

  But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)

  Of the first nothing the elixir grown;

      Were I a man, that I were one

      I needs must know; I should prefer,

         If I were any beast,

  Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,

  And love; all, all some properties invest;

  If I an ordinary nothing were,

  As shadow, a light and body must be here.

  But I am none; nor will my sun renew.

  You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun

      At this time to the Goat is run

      To fetch new lust, and give it you,

         Enjoy your summer all;

  Since she enjoys her long night's festival,

  Let me prepare towards her, and let me call

  This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this

  Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

NOTESForm: abbacccdd1. St. Lucy's day, Dec. 13, was regarded as the shortest day in the old (Julian) calendar. 3. flasks: obsolete variant of flashes. 4. squibs: (unimpressive) fireworks. 6. general balm. It was thought that, as Donne puts it in one of his verse letters, \