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...
call ghosts life
Yet call not this long life; but think that IAm, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?
call ghosts
Yet call not this long life; but think that I Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?
busy call curtains dost motions seasons thou thy unruly
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, / Why dost thou thus, / Through windows, and through curtains call on us? / Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
bodies body call chastity honest inhumane integrity itself keeping kept lawful less modest purpose reason until virginity virtue willing yield
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth only in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield itself upon honest and lawful terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
sleep calling may
Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.
again broke grave guest second
When my grave is broke up again / Some second guest to entertain.
rejection body
To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
love beauty sarcastic
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
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.
Be your own palace, or the world is your jail.
bodies far though
But O alas, so long, so far / Our bodies why do we forbear? / They're ours, though they're not we, we are / The intelligences, they the sphere.
brave braver doth hid spring
I have done one brave thing - Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring - Which is to keep that hid