John Donne
John Donne
John Donnewas an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to that of his contemporaries. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations...
dream joys
So, if I dream I have you, I have you, / For all our joys are but fantastical.
art bed centre shine thou thy
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere,/ This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
absent letters mingle speak thus
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak
coming holy instrument saints shall since thy tune
Since I am coming to that holy room, / Where, with thy quire of Saints for evermore, / I shall be made thy Music; As I come / I tune the instrument here at the door, / And what I must do then, think here before.
princes
She is all States, and all Princes, I, / Nothing else is. / Princes do but play us.
love saw white
Nurse, O my love is slain, I saw him go / O'er the white Alps alone.
add again attain love second till unto
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.
add again love unto
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again years and years unto years.
god imagine
Imagine God to be at play with us, but a gamester...
met though till
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.
affect angels face knew loved thy twice worshipped
Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be
cute-love face knew loved sweet-love thy twice
Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name.
rejection body
To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
love beauty sarcastic
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.