John Donne

The Legacy (John Donne)

When last I died, and, dear, I die
As often as from thee I go,
Though it be but an hour ago

Lovers' hours

Donne plays with time perception—an hour apart feels like eternity to lovers. Sets up the poem's conceit: every separation is a death.

—And lovers' hours be full eternity—
I can remember yet, that I
Something did say, and something did bestow;
Though I be dead, which sent me, I might be
Mine own executor, and legacy.

Legal executor

He's treating himself as both the deceased and the executor of his own will. The entire poem works as a metaphysical conceit about making a bequest.

I heard me say, "Tell her anon,
That myself," that is you, not I,
" Did kill me," and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone;
But I alas! could there find none;

Ripped and searched

Literal autopsy imagery—he's cutting himself open looking for his heart to send her. The violence is physical, not just emotional.

When I had ripp'd, and search'd where hearts should lie,
It kill'd me again, that I who still was true
In life, in my last will should cozen you.

Cozen

**Cozen** means to cheat or deceive. Sending a fake heart in his will would make him a fraud even in death.

Yet I found something like a heart,

Colours and corners

A real heart is uniform and round. This substitute heart has **colours** (changeable moods) and **corners** (sharp edges, not smooth). It's artificial.

But colours it, and corners had;
It was not good, it was not bad,
It was entire to none, and few had part;
As good as could be made by art
It seem'd, and therefore for our loss be sad.
I meant to send that heart instead of mine,
But O! no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.

No man could hold it

The twist: the only heart he could find was hers, already given to him. He can't send back what she already gave him.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Autopsy Conceit

Donne builds the entire poem around a metaphysical conceit—an extended metaphor that compares two wildly unlike things through elaborate logic. Here, leaving his lover equals dying, which means he needs to execute his will and bequeath his heart. The conceit gets stranger: he performs an autopsy on himself to find the heart he promised to send.

The legal language is precise. "Executor" and "legacy" aren't decorative—Donne actually imagines himself as both the dead man and the lawyer handling the estate. In the second stanza, he even quotes his own last words in quotation marks, as if transcribing testimony. This mock-legal framework lets him explore a real emotional problem: what do you give someone who already has your heart?

The autopsy in stanza two is visceral. "Ripp'd" and "search'd where hearts should lie" treats the body as a literal corpse on a table. Donne wrote this around 1600, when public anatomies were entertainment and moral spectacle—dissecting criminals to reveal inner truth. He's dissecting himself to prove his faithfulness, but the heart is missing. The violence of the imagery makes the emotional point: love has already hollowed him out.

The Counterfeit Heart

When Donne can't find his real heart, he finds "something like a heart" with colours and corners. This is technical language. A true heart is uniform in color and round in shape. This substitute has colours (it changes, it's inconstant) and corners (it's angular, artificial, "made by art"). It's a counterfeit—the word "cozen" in line 15 means to defraud or cheat.

The phrase "entire to none, and few had part" describes a divided heart. Entire means wholly devoted—this heart belongs completely to no one, though pieces of it are scattered to various people. It's the opposite of the singular devotion he claims to have. The fake heart would make him a fraud: "I who still was true / In life, in my last will should cozen you."

The final twist reveals why he can't send any heart: "no man could hold it, for 'twas thine." The only heart he found was hers, already given to him in their exchange of love. He can't bequeath what she already owns. The poem ends on this logical knot—he has nothing to give because she already possesses it. It's a typical Donne move: resolve the emotional problem with a logical paradox that's also a compliment.