La Carona

4. Temple

With his kind mother who partakes thy woe,

Joseph turn back; see where your child doth sit,

Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,

Which himself on those Doctors did bestow;

The Word but lately could not speak, and lo

It suddenly speaks wonders, whence comes it,

That all which was, and all which should be writ,

A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?

His godhead was not soul to his manhood,

Nor had time mellowed him to this ripeness,

But as for one which hath a long task, ’tis good,

With the sun to begin his business,

He in his age’s morning thus began

By miracles exceeding power of man,

Selection take from: John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works,  edited by John Carey; Oxford: OUP, 1990