John Donne

Twickenham Garden

Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears,
{{gap|1em}}Hither I come to seek the spring,
And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,
{{gap|1em}}Receive such balms as else cure every thing.
{{gap|1em}}But O ! self-traitor, I do bring

spider Love

**Transubstantiation** is the Catholic doctrine that bread and wine literally become Christ's body and blood. Donne inverts it—love turns good things poisonous instead of transforming them into grace.

The spider Love, which transubstantiates all,
And can convert manna to gall;

manna to gall

**Manna** is the miraculous food God gave the Israelites in the desert. **Gall** is bitter poison. Love reverses divine gifts into toxins.

And that this place may thoroughly be thought

the serpent

He's turned Twickenham Garden into Eden-after-the-Fall. The serpent is himself—or his corrupting love—making paradise a site of suffering.

True paradise, I have the serpent brought.
'Twere wholesomer for me that winter did
{{gap|1em}}Benight the glory of this place,
And that a grave frost did forbid
{{gap|1em}}These trees to laugh and mock me to my face;
{{gap|1em}}But that I may not this disgrace
Endure, nor yet leave loving, Love, let me
Some senseless piece of this place be;
Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here,

Make me a mandrake

**Mandrakes** were believed to shriek when uprooted and grow from hanged men's semen. A plant associated with pain, death, and sexual magic—fitting for his wish to become unfeeling vegetation.

Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

crystal phials

He's bottling his tears like alchemical samples or relics. Lovers can use them as a **litmus test**—if their mistress's tears don't match his in bitterness, she's faking.

Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come,
{{gap|1em}}And take my tears, which are love's wine,
And try your mistress' tears at home,
{{gap|1em}}For all are false, that taste not just like mine.
{{gap|1em}}Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine,
Nor can you more judge women's thoughts by tears,
Than by her shadow what she wears.
O perverse sex, where none is true but she,
Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

her truth kills me

The final paradox: she's the only faithful woman **because** her fidelity (to someone else? to rejecting him?) is what's destroying him. Her virtue is his torture.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Donne's Anti-Garden

Twickenham Garden was the estate of Lucy, Countess of Bedford, Donne's patron and possible unrequited love. Gardens in Renaissance poetry are conventional sites of renewal—lovers go there to heal, to court, to find spring. Donne comes to Twickenham seeking balms (medicinal ointments) and the restorative spring, but he's the self-traitor who poisons what he touches.

The poem's central conceit inverts transubstantiation, the Catholic miracle Donne knew intimately—he was raised Catholic, lost family members to persecution, and eventually became an Anglican priest. In the Eucharist, ordinary bread becomes sacred. In love, Donne's spider Love turns manna (God's perfect food) into gall (what Christ tasted on the cross). He's not just lovesick—he's theologically corrupted, carrying the serpent into Eden.

The garden imagery gets stranger in stanza two. He wants winter to kill the place, wants a grave frost to stop the trees from laughing at him. Trees don't laugh—this is pathetic fallacy pushed to paranoia. Then he asks to become part of the landscape: a mandrake (a screaming root associated with executions and fertility magic) or a stone fountain (forever weeping). Both options mean becoming inhuman, senseless, stuck.

The Tear-Test Scam

The final stanza sets up an absurd experiment. Donne tells other lovers to bottle his tears—love's wine—and compare them to their mistresses' tears at home. If hers don't taste the same, she's faking. It's alchemy meets quality control, treating tears like they're chemical compounds with measurable properties.

But he immediately admits the test is worthless: hearts do not in eyes shine. You can't read thoughts from tears any more than you can tell what a woman's wearing by looking at her shadow. The whole stanza is a trap—he offers a method, then confesses it's impossible, then concludes all women are false anyway.

The closing couplet is pure Donne paradox-mongering: none is true but she, / Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me. She's faithful—but not to him. Her constancy (to another man? to her own independence?) is what's destroying him. So her virtue proves all women are false, except her, whose truth is lethal. It's logically twisted, emotionally raw, and typical of Donne's metaphysical style—using argument and contradiction to dramatize impossible emotional positions.