Song -- Go and catch a falling star" by John Donne

It was said that Donne's poem was likely written when he was in a drunken mood and possibly, too, when he was rejected by his lover or disappointed in his love. Describing the difficulty of finding virtuous women in the world, Donne uses the similes of catching falling stars, pregnancies with mandrake roots and teaching mermaids to sing. "Ride ten thousand days and nights" says he, "till age snow white hairs on thee / Thou, when thou returns't, will tell me / all strange wonders that befell the / and swear / no where / lives a woman true and fair" (lines 12-18). A true Schopenhauer! In his final stanza, Donne concludes that even were this woman to live next door, by the time he would manage to meet her she would have succeeded in being unfaithful.

Donne's historical...
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