Poetry for Students, Volume 35

Poem Text

Go, and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me, where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing, 5

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’est born to strange sights, 10

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, 15

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet, 20

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 25

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

POEM SUMMARY

Stanza 1
The first stanza of ‘‘Song,’’ directly addresses the
reader, asking him (a male reader is assumed on
the part of this seventeenth-century poet) to per-
form impossible tasks and answer impossible
questions. The first task is to ‘‘catch a falling
star.’’ There are such things as falling stars, and
they are usually called meteors. These are small
objects that enter the Earth’s atmosphere at great
speeds and then burn up. This process creates
light, and so the term ‘‘falling star’’ or ‘‘shooting
star’’ has been used to describe them. A falling
star may be observed, but who could actually
catch one? Obviously, the task is impossible.

Line 2 instructs the reader to perform an
equally impossible but very different task, ‘‘Get
with child a mandrake root.’’ Mandrake refers to
any plant of the genus Mandragora. The root of
the mandrake is shaped like a fork and is said to
resemble the lower part of the human male body.
According to folklore, when the root is pulled
from the ground it is castrated and shrieks in

pain. Donne’s instruction is obviously impossi-

ble, since how could anyone get a mandrake root

pregnant, especially one that has been castrated

by being pulled from the ground?

Line 3 also presents a baffling task for any-

one: ‘‘Tell me where all past years are.’’ Who could

possibly do that? The past is past; it is vanished,

due to the passage of what people call time. People

may feel the effects of the past, but where those

days have gone is not possible for anyone to

know. Something that was, is no more. That is

all anyone knows, so this line presents the third

impossible task in this poem.

The fourth impossible task is presented in

line 4, in which the reader is instructed to tell the

poet ‘‘who cleft the Devil’s foot.’’ To cleave some-

thing is to split it apart. In Christian mythology,

the devil, also known as Lucifer, is presented as

having a cleft (or cloven) foot. In other words, the

devil’s foot is divided into two, unlike a human

foot that has five toes. Particularly in medieval

MEDIA

ADAPTATIONS

English singer and guitarist John Renbourn

set ‘‘Song’’ to music. It is included on his CD

John Renbourn, first released in 1965, reissued

in 2001 and available from Amazon.com.

‘‘Song’’ is included in Anthony Quayle’s CD

Elizabethan Sonnets and Lyrics, released by

Saland in 2008. Quayle’s reading of ‘‘Song’’

is also available as an MP3 download from

Amazon.com.

Poems by John Donne, a CD released by

CreateSpace in 2008, features Christopher

Hassall reading thirteen of Donne’s most

famous poems (not including ‘‘Song.’’)

Richard Burton Reads the Poetry of John

Donne, released by Saland Publishing in

2009, is available in MP3 or CD format. It

features famous British actor Richard Burton

reading twenty poems by Donne, including

‘‘Song.’’

Song