Catch a falling star

It wasn’t until I heard a Radio 4 repeat of The Write Stuff in the place usually occupied by Today In Parliament that I made any connection between John Donne & Perry Como.

Catch a falling star doesn’t really seem like a phrase whose ownership can be claimed by any single author but, according to the programme, that 1950s Perry Como song, of some precious childhood memory & the first ever Gold Record, owes its inspiration to my favourite poet.

On the programme Jane Thynne also gave her brilliant pastiche of a Donne poem for love in the age of texting & social networking.


SONG.
by John Donne


GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Links
Catch a Falling Star

The Write Stuff

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