John Donne and dusted

"Hello Laydeeez ... Let's get poetic!"

The other day I happened to hear an entertaining and stunningly dirty poem read out on BBC Radio Four's Poetry Please. It's by John Donne ( 1572-1631) who is counted as a Metaphysical Poet (which seems to mean he was fond of tortuous and improbable metaphors involving popular science). John "No man is an island" Donne wrote about sex A LOT. Mostly whining that he deserves to get more of it:

"How happy were our sires in ancient time,
Who held plurality of loves no crime."

"Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   
How little that which thou deniest me is;   
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
    Yet this enjoys before it woo,
    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
    And this, alas, is more than we would do."

The Elegy in question (and I'm not even sure whether it was number 18 or 19, since that seems to vary depending on who you ask), is about ... vulvas. After extensive consideration I can only summarise the message of the poem as "Pussy is JUST AWESOME. In fact it's so good, that when you go down on a woman you should start at her feet instead of wasting time being distracted by her boobs and stuff."

This makes me think his foreplay was a bit shit.  Also the poem ends with a jarring couplet involving a comparison to an enema.

I may not be cut out for poetry, but for those of you on a more elevated plane, here is Elegy XVIII (or XIX). BTW, it might help a bit know that it was held at the time that bear-cubs were born as shapeless blobs and licked into shape by their mothers.

Whoever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born : if we o'er-lick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster, that were grown
Faced like a man, though better than his own ?
Perfection is in unity ; prefer
One woman first, and then one thing in her.
I, when I value gold, may think upon
The ductileness, the application,
The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,
From rust, from soil, from fire ever free ;
But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis made
By our new nature, use, the soul of trade.
All this in women we might think upon,
—If women had them—and yet love but one.
Can men more injure women than to say
They love them for that, by which they're not they ?
Makes virtue woman ? must I cool my blood
Till I both be, and find one wise and good ?
May barren angels love so.   But if we
Make love to woman, virtue is not she,
As beauty is not, nor wealth.   He that strays thus
From her to hers is more adulterous
Than if he took her maid.   Search every sphere
And firmament, our Cupid is not there.
He's an infernal God, and underground
With Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound.
Men to such gods their sacrificing coals
Did not on altars lay, but pits and holes.
Although we see celestial bodies move
Above the earth, the earth we till and love.
So we her airs contemplate, words and heart,
And virtues, but we love the centric part.
    Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fit
For love, than this, as infinite as it.
But in attaining this desired place
How much they err, that set out at the face ?
The hair a forest is of ambushes,
Of springes, snares, fetters, and manacles ;
The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,
And when 'tis wrinkled, shipwrecks us again ;
Smooth, 'tis a paradise, where we would have
Immortal stay, but wrinkled 'tis a grave.
The nose, like to the first meridian, runs
Not 'twixt an east and west, but 'twixt two suns ;
It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,
On either side, and then directs us where
Upon the islands fortunate we fall,
Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial,
Her swelling lips, to which when we are come,
We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,
For they seem all ; there Sirens' songs and there
Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear.
There, in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,
The remora, her cleaving tongue, doth dwell.
These and the glorious promontory, her chin,
O'erpast, and the straight Hellespont between
The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,
Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests,
Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye
Some island moles may scattered there descry ;
And sailing towards her India, in that way
Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay.
Though there the current be the pilot made,
Yet, ere thou be where thou shouldst be embay'd,
Thou shalt upon another forest set,
Where many shipwreck, and no further get.
When thou art there, consider what this chase
Misspent by thy beginning at the face.
    Rather set out below ; practise thy art ;
Some symmetry the foot hath with that part
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,
Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at.
Least subject to disguise and change it is ; 
Men say the devil never can change his ;
It is the emblem that hath figured
Firmness ; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.
Civility we see refined ; the kiss,
Which at the face began, transplanted is,
Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee,
Now at the papal foot delights to be.
If kings think that the nearer way, and do
Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too ;
For, as free spheres move faster far than can
Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man
Which goes this empty and ethereal way,
Than if at beauty's elements he stay.
Rich Nature in women wisely made
Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid.
They then which to the lower tribute owe,
That way which that exchequer looks must go ;
He which doth not, his error is as great,
As who by clyster gives the stomach meat.