The Metaphysical poet John Donne was renowned for the passion of his love poetry; but he can be cynical, too, without losing his poetic panache.

GO AND CATCH A FALLING STAR

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all riches are,

Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

~

If thou be’st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights

Till Age snow white hairs on thee;

Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

~

If thou find’st one, let me know;

Such a pilgrimage were sweet.

Yet do not; I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet.

Though she were true when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come to two or three.