The Broken Heart

The Broken Heart

He is stark mad, who ever says
That he had been in love an hour;
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flask of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but Love draws,
He swallow us, and never chaws:
By him as by chain'd shot, whole ranks to die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If'twhere not so, what did become
Of my heart, when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me:
If I had gone to thee, I know
Mine would gave taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me: but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite,
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.

John Donne