'Tis time, 'tis day, what if it be?
Wilt thou therefore arise from me?
Did we lie down because of night,
And shall we rise for fear of light?
No, since in darkness we came hither,
In spight of light we'll lye together.
Oh! let me dye on thy sweet breast
Far sweeter than the Phœnix nest.
It was probably some such combination as this which suggested to the editor of 1669 to prefix the stanza to Donne's poem. The poem in The Academy of Compliments was repeated in Wits Interpreter, the English Parnassus, a sure guide to those Admirable Accomplishments that compleat our English Gentry in the most acceptable Qualifications of Discourse or Writing (1655). But the first stanza is given again in this collection as a separate poem.
The translation of the Psalme 137, which was inserted in 1633 and never withdrawn (as the Epitaph on Shakespeare was) is pretty certainly not by Donne. The only manuscript which ascribes it to him is A25 followed by C. On the other hand it is assigned to Francis Davison, editor of the Poetical Rhapsody, in RP61 (Bodleian Library). In one manuscript, Addl. MS. 27407, the poem is accompanied with a letter, unsigned and undirected, which speaks of this as one out of several translations made by the author. The handwriting and style of the letter are not Donne's, but the letter explains why this one Psalm is found floating around by itself. It was, the translator says, a freer paraphrase than the others. Apparently it proved a favourite.