this is the second of our reign

I was going to wait until I was home with my three different editions of Donne, but I have a few minutes now, between a full day of work and my dinner plans, so here we go. IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. IT'S A DONNE YEAR. IT'S TIME FOR THIS POEM.

All kings, and all their favourites,
    All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun itself, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
    Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

    Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
    If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
    But souls where nothing dwells but love
—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

    And then we shall be throughly blest;
    But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
    True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.

—John Donne (1572-1621), "The Anniversarie" or, sometimes, "The Anniversary" (not to be confused with the Anniversaries) from Songs and Sonnets, here with modernized spelling and punctuation courtesy of E. K. Chambers, I think. I mean, honestly, whatever. I could yell about editorial practices for years, but let's just let the poem be, today.