Love's Usury

For every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
I will allow,
Usurious god of love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown my gray hairs equal be.
Till then, Love, let my body range, and let
Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,
Resume my last year's relict ; think that yet
We'd never met.

Let me think any rival's letter mine,
And at next nine
Keep midnight's promise ; mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the lady of that delay ;
Only let me love none ; no, not the sport
From country grass to confitures of court,
Or city's quelque-choses ; let not report
My mind transport.

This bargain's good ; if when I'm old, I be
Inflamed by thee,
If thine own honour, or my shame and pain,
Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain.
Do thy will then ; then subject and degree
And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee.
Spare me till then ; I'll bear it, though she be
One that love me.

Usury is the practice of lending money in change for a huge amount of interest. In the first stanza of this poem Donne addresses him self to the god of Love telling him that he will allow every hour of happiness that will be spared to him (1-2). In the third line of the first stanza Donne then is suspicious about the usury behind the hours of happiness that the god promises him. In line three Donne calls him ‘usurious god of Love’ because for every hour of happiness that he will grant, he will want 20 hours in change. Donne adds in line 4 that if he where to make a deal with the god of Love he would have to pay him until his hair would turn grey. In line five Donne does not care about the consequences and says that until the day that he will have to pay his usury let love take over his body. In the second stanza Donne seams to be caught in a fury of passion and starts loving all sorts of woman. In the third stanza Donne says that the bargain with the Love god is good if it will last until he is old (1-2). Donne then decides that if he will be able to feel the ardor of love until he will be old he chooses to submit to Love as long as there will be some woman to love him.

http://www.dbu.edu/naugle/pdf/donne_philosophy_love.pdf