"A Problem Page For All!"

Are you thinking of The Flea? We studied this one in literature class a couple years ago. It's definitely togue-in-cheeck and smarmy! Makes me laugh while the language makes me swoon. How's that for a crazy combination?!

(I have two copies of the poem -- one in my lit. textbook, the other in my lovely little volume of Donne. I'm typing in the correct spellings because it's a bit easier to read that way; but I love to read it in the original form, too, with all those extra E's and the funny other spellings added on!)

The Flea by John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
         Yet this enjoys being it woo,
         And pamper'd swells with on blood made of two,
         And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
         Though use make you apt to kill mee,
         Let not to that, self murder added be,
         And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself, nor me, the weaker now.
         'Tis true. Then learn how false fears be:
         Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
         Will waste, as this flea's deat too life from thee.