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?
life war book
All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another
life swear fairs
And swear No where Lives a woman true, and fair.
life joy nursery
. . . Change is the nursery Of musicke, joy, life and eternity.
life tolls bells
Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 Our critical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course of our life; I thank him, that prays for me when my bell tolls; but I thank him much more, that catechizes me, or preaches to me, or instructs me how to live.
life-and-death going-out execution
All our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.
life sleep men
Men have conceived a twofold use of sleep; it is a refreshing of the body in this life, and a preparing of the soul for the next.
life critical courses
Our critical day is not the very day of our death; but the whole course of our life.
balm earth general hath sap
The world's whole sap is sunk: / The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk.
Be your own palace, or the world is your jail.
both break ghost happiest last selves sucks thou turn
So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, / Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away,/ Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this, / And let our selves benight our happiest day.
goes propose sea sick true whoever
Whoever loves, if he do not propose the right true end of love, he's one that goes to sea for nothing but to make him sick
crowns harm nor question shroud subtle
Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm / Nor question much / That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm.
almost blood body eloquent might pure spoke
Her pure and eloquent blood / Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, / That one might almost say, her body thought.