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...
eye home long
Send home my long strayed eyes to me, Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee.
god gnats worms
If every gnat that flies were an archangel, all that could but tell me that there is a God; and the poorest worm that creeps tells me that.
love-is great-love long
How great love is, presence best trial makes, But absence tries how long this love will be.
executioners sabotage my-own
But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.
soul firsts doe
In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me.
god autumn moon
God made sun and moon to distinguish the seasons, and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is always autumn. His mercies are ever in their maturity.
creativity creation poetry-is
Poetry is a counterfeit creation, and makes things that are not, as though they were
infatuation take-me chaste
Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
death exercise swimming
I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.
night history what-if
What if this present were the world's last night?
mean perfect desire
And if there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a new knowledge than a greater knowledge; rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knownat all beforethananimproving, anadvancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect.
spirit melancholy spirit-of-god
Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a damper.
suffering psalms
The Psalms foretell what I, what any shall do and suffer and say.
steps small-steps tomorrow
Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.