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Death Be Not Proud, Though Some Have Called Thee Mighty And Dreadful, For Thou Art Not So. For, Those, Whom Thou Think'st Thou Dost Overthrow. Die Not, Poor Death, Nor Yet Canst Thou Kill Me.

-John Donne

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Death Be Not Proud,

John Donne

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Death Be Not Proud, Though Some Have Called Thee Mighty And Dreadful, For Thou Art Not So. For, Those, Whom Thou Think'st Thou Dost Overthrow. Die Not, Poor Death, Nor Yet Canst Thou Kill Me.

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Doubt Wisely; In Strange Way To Stand Inquiring Right, Is Not To Stray; To Sleep, Or Run Wrong, Is.

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We Study Health, And We Deliberate Upon Our Meats And Drink And Air And Exercises, And We Hew And We Polish Every Stone That Goes To That Building; And So Our Health Is A Long And Regular Work. But In A Minute A Cannon Batters All, Overthrows All, Demolishes All; A Sickness Unprevented For All Our Diligence, Unsuspected For All Our Curiosity, Nay, Undeserved, If We Consider Only Disorder, Summons Us, Seizes Us, Possesses Us, Destroys Us In An Instant.

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As Soon As There Was Two There Was Pride.

He That Desires To Print A Book, Should Much More Desire, To Be A Book.

Art Is The Most Passionate Orgy Within Man's Grasp.

Nature's Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee To Love.

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls; It Tolls For Thee

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Love, All Alike, No Season Knows, Nor Clime, Nor Hours, Days, Months, Which Are The Rags Of Time.

...whatever Dies Was Not Mixed Equally, If Our Two Loves Be One Or Thou And I Love So Alike That None Can Slacken, None Can Die.

The Phoenix Riddle Hath More Wit By Us, We Two Being One, Are It. So To One Neutral Thing Both Sexes Fit, We Die And Rise The Same, And Prove Mysterious By This Love.

Of All The Commentaries On The Scriptures, Good Examples Are The Best.

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At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners, Blow Your Trumpets, Angels.

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. . . Change Is The Nursery Of Musicke, Joy, Life And Eternity.

Whilst My Physicians By Their Love Are Grown Cosmographers, And I Their Map, Who Lie Flat On This Bed.

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Filled With Her Love, May I Be Rather Grown Mad With Much Heart, Than Idiot With None.

True Joy Is The Earnest Which We Have Of Heaven, It Is The Treasure Of The Soul, And Therefore Should Be Laid In A Safe Place, And Nothing In This World Is Safe To Place It In.

For Love All Love Of Other Sights Controls And Makes One Little Room An Everywhere

At Most, The Greatest Persons Are But Great Wens, And Excrescences; Men Of Wit And Delightful Conversation, But As Morals For Ornament, Except They Be So Incorporated Into The Body Of The World That They Contribute Something To The Sustentation Of The Whole.

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As Virtuous Men Pass Mildly Away, And Whisper To Their Souls To Go, Whilst Some Of Their Sad Friends Do Say, The Breath Goes Now, And Some Say No.

I Do Not Love A Man, Except I Hate His Vices, Because Those Vices Are The Enemies, And The Destruction Of That Friend Whom I Love.

Doth Not A Man Die Even In His Birth? The Breaking Of Prison Is Death, And What Is Our Birth, But A Breaking Of Prison?

But Think That We Are But Turned Aside To Sleep.

Dull Sublunary Lovers' Love (whose Soul Is Sense) Cannot Admit Absence, Because It Doth Remove Those Things Which Elemented It.

All Our Life Is But A Going Out To The Place Of Execution, To Death.

As He That Fears God Fears Nothing Else, So He That Sees God Sees Everything Else.

Commemoration Of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He Was The Word That Spake It; He Took The Bread And Brake It; And What That Word Did Make It I Do Believe, And Take It.

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I Count All That Part Of My Life Lost Which I Spent Not In Communion With God, Or In Doing Good.

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So, So, Break Off This Last Lamenting Kiss, Which Sucks Two Souls, And Vapors Both Away.

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Poor Intricated Soul! Riddling, Perplexed, Labyrinthical Soul!

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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.

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For God's Sake Hold Your Tongue, And Let Me Love.

What If This Present Were The World's Last Night?

Between These Two, The Denying Of Sins, Which We Have Done, And The Bragging Of Sins, Which We Have Not Done, What A Space, What A Compass Is There, For Millions Of Millions Of Sins!

Sleep Is Pain's Easiest Salve, And Doth Fulfil All Offices Of Death, Except To Kill.

No Man Is An Island Unto Himself.

My World's Both Parts, And 'o! Both Parts Must Die.

Nature Hath No Goal Though She Hath Law.

Old Grandsires Talk Of Yesterday With Sorrow, And For Our Children We Reserve Tomorrow.

The Day Breaks Not, It Is My Heart.

O How Feeble Is Man's Power, That If Good Fortune Fall, Cannot Add Another Hour, Nor A Lost Hour Recall!

Affliction Is A Treasure, And Scarce Any Man Hath Enough Of It. No Man Hath Affliction Enough That Is Not Matured And Ripened By It And Made Fit For God.

I Have Done One Braver Thing Than All The Worthies Did, And Yet A Braver Thence Doth Spring, Which Is, To Keep That Hid.

Die Not, Poore Death, Nor Yet Canst Thou Kill Me.

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If I Lose At Play, I Blaspheme; If My Fellow Loses, He Blasphemes. So, God Is Always The Loser.

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Love Built On Beauty, Soon As Beauty, Dies.

I Am Two Fools, I Know, For Loving, And For Saying So.

Death Be Not Proud, Though Some Have Called Thee Mighty And Dreadful, For Thou Art Not So. For, Those, Whom Thou Think'st Thou Dost Overthrow. Die Not, Poor Death, Nor Yet Canst Thou Kill Me.

Man Hath Weaved Out A Net, And This Net Throwne Upon The Heavens, And Now They Are His Own.

Then Love Is Sin, And Let Me Sinful Be.

We Can Die By It, If Not Live By Love, And If Unfit For Tombs And Hearse Our Legend Be, It Will Be Fit For Verse; And If No Peace Of Chronicle We Prove, We'll Build In Sonnet Pretty Rooms; As Well A Well Wrought Urne Becomes The Greatest Ashes, As Half-acre Tombs.

Festive Alcohol Sometimes Leads To An Excess Of Honesty.

I Did Best When I Had Least Truth For My Subjects.

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There Is Hook In Every Benefit, That Sticks In His Jaws That Takes That Benefit, And Draws Him Whither The Benefactor Will.

Up Then, Fair Phoenix Bride, Frustrate The Sun; Thyself From Thine Affection Takest Warmth Enough, And From Thine Eye All Lesser Birds Will Take Their Jollity. Up, Up, Fair Bride, And Call Thy Stars From Out Their Several Boxes, Take Thy Rubies, Pearls, And Diamonds Forth, And Make Thyself A Constellation Of Them All; And By Their Blazing Signify That A Great Princess Falls, But Doth Not Die. Be Thou A New Star, That To Us Portends Ends Of Much Wonder; And Be Thou Those Ends.

I Shall Die Reading; Since My Book And A Grave Are So Near.

Kind Pity Chokes My Spleen.

Who Are A Little Wise The Best Fools Be.

If I Dream I Have You, I Have You, For All Our Joys Are But Fantastical.

Christ Beats His Drum, But He Does Not Press Men; Christ Is Served With Voluntaries.

Licence My Roving Hands, And Let Them Go Before, Behind, Between, Above, Below.

Full Nakedness! All My Joys Are Due To Thee, As Souls Unbodied, Bodies Unclothed Must Be, To Taste Whole Joys.

There Is In Every Miracle A Silent Chiding Of The World, And A Tacit Reprehension Of Them Who Require, Or Who Need Miracles.

The Rich Have No More Of The Kingdom Of Heaven Than They Have Purchased Of The Poor By Their Alms.

God Himself Took A Day To Rest In, And A Good Man's Grave Is His Sabbath.

All Mankind Is Of One Author, And Is One Volume; When One Man Dies, One Chapter Is Not Torn Out Of The Book, But Translated Into A Better Language; And Every Chapter Must Be So Translated....as Therefore The Bell That Rings To A Sermon, Calls Not Upon The Preacher Only, But Upon The Congregation To Come: So This Bell Calls Us All....no Man Is An Island, Entire Of Itself...any Man's Death Diminishes Me, Because I Am Involved In Mankind; And Therefore Never Send To Know For Whom The Bell Tolls; It Tolls For Thee.

Be More Than Man, Or Thou'rt Less Than An Ant.

God Employs Several Translators; Some Pieces Are Translated By Age, Some By Sickness, Some By War, Some By Justice.

To Rage, To Lust, To Write To, To Commend, All Is The Purlieu Of The God Of Love.

Love Is A Growing, Or Full Constant Light; And His First Minute, After Noon, Is Night.

I Wonder, By My Troth, What Thou And I Did, Till We Lov'd?

Without Outward Declarations, Who Can Conclude An Inward Love?

The Difference Between The Reason Of Man And The Instinct Of The Beast Is This, That The Beast Does But Know, But The Man Knows That He Knows.

When I Died Last, And, Dear, I Die As Often As From Thee I Go Though It Be But An Hour Ago, And Lovers' Hours Be Full Eternity.

This Extasie Doth Unperplex (we Said) And Tell Us What We Love, Wee See By This, It Was Not Sexe, Wee See, We Saw Not What Did Move: But As All Severall Soules Contain Mixture Of Things, They Know Not What, Love, These Mixt Souls, Doth Mixe Againe. Loves Mysteries In Soules Doe Grow, But Yet The Body Is His Booke.

I Sing The Progress Of A Deathless Soul.

The Heavens Rejoice In Motion, Why Should I Abjure My So Much Loved Variety.

Come Live With Me, And Be My Love, And We Will Some New Pleasures Prove Of Golden Sands, And Crystal Brooks, With Silken Lines, And Silver Hooks.

Friends Are Ourselves.

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.

Contemplative And Bookish Men Must Of Necessity Be More Quarrelsome Than Others, Because They Contend Not About Matter Of Fact, Nor Can Determine Their Controversies By Any Certain Witnesses, Nor Judges. But As Long As They Go Towards Peace, That Is Truth, It Is No Matter Which Way.

If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree, Whose Fruit Threw Death On Else Immortal Us, If Lecherous Goats, If Serpents Envious Cannot Be Damned; Alas; Why Should I Be?

When God's Hand Is Bent To Strike, It Is A Fearful Thing To Fall Into The Hands Of The Living God ; But To Fall Out Of The Hands Of The Living God Is A Horror Beyond Our Expression, Beyond Our Imagination.

When One Man Dies, One Chapter Is Not Torn Out Of The Book, But Translated Into A Better Language.

True And False Fears Let Us Refrain, 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.

Great Sorrows Cannot Speak.

In Best Understandings, Sin Began, Angels Sinned First, Then Devils, And Then Man.

Send Home My Long Strayed Eyes To Me, Which (oh) Too Long Have Dwelt On Thee.

I Neglect God And His Angles For The Noise Of A Fly, For The Rattling Of A Coach, For The Whining Of A Door.

Other Men's Crosses Are Not My Crosses.

Thou Art Slave To Fate, Chance, Kings, And Desperate Men, And Dost With Poison, War, And Sickness Dwell, And Poppy, Or Charms, Can Make Us Sleep As Well, And Better Than Thy Stroke. Why Swell'st Thou Then?

I Throw Myself Down In My Chamber, And I Call And Invite God And His Angels Thither.

There Is Nothing That God Hath Established In A Constant Course Of Nature, And Which Therefore Is Done Every Day, But Would Seem A Miracle, And Exercise Our Admiration, If It Were Done But Once.

Love's Mysteries In Souls Do Grow, But Yet The Body Is His Book.

That Which Attempts To Elevate The Ugly To The Level Of Beauty Becomes Neither; But An Obscenity.

'tis The Year's Midnight, And It Is The Day's.

Solitude Is A Torment Which Is Not Threatened In Hell Itself.

God Is So Omnipresent. . . . God Is An Angel In An Angel, And A Stone In A Stone, And A Straw In A Straw.

Women Are Like The Arts, Forced Unto None, Open To All Searchers, Unprized, If Unknown.

Our Critical Day Is Not The Very Day Of Our Death; But The Whole Course Of Our Life.

And New Philosophy Calls All In Doubt, The Element Of Fire Is Quite Put Out; The Sun Is Lost, And The Earth, And No Mans Wit Can Well Direct Him Where To Look For It.

Though Truth And Falsehood Be Near Twins, Yet Truth A Little Elder Is.

Truth And Falsehood

Eternity Is Not An Everlasting Flux Of Time, But Time Is As A Short Parenthesis In A Long Period.

And When A Whirl-winde Hath Blowne The Dust Of The Churchyard Into The Church, And Man Sweeps Out The Dust Of The Church Into The Church-yard, Who Will Undertake To Sift Those Dusts Again, And To Pronounce, This Is The Patrician, This Is The Noble Flower, And This The Yeomanly, This The Plebian Bran.

But He Who Loveliness Within Hath Found, All Outward Loathes, For He Who Color Loves, And Skin, Loves But Their Oldest Clothes.

Between Cowardice And Despair, Valour Is Gendred.

A Man That Is Not Afraid Of A Lion Is Afraid Of A Cat .

Verse Hath A Middle Nature: Heaven Keeps Souls, The Grave Keeps Bodies, Verse The Fame Enrols.

The Psalms Foretell What I, What Any Shall Do And Suffer And Say.

This Only Is Charity, To Do All, All That We Can.

That Subtle Knot Which Makes Us Man So Must Pure Lovers Souls Descend T Affections, And To Faculties, Which Sense May Reach And Apprehend, Else A Great Prince In Prison Lies.

That Thou Remember Them, Some Claim As Debt; I Think It Mercy, If Thou Wilt Forget.

Love Is Strong As Death; But Nothing Else Is As Strong As Either; And Both, Love And Death, Met In Christ. How Strong And Powerful Upon You, Then, Should That Instruction Be, That Comes To You From Both These, The Love And Death Of Jesus Christ!

Sleep Is Pain's Easiest Salve

Lust-bred Diseases Rot Thee.

I Shall Not Live 'till I See God; And When I Have Seen Him, I Shall Never Die.

I Long To Talk With Some Old Lover's Ghost, Who Died Before The God Of Love Was Born.

Our Faults Are Not Seen, But Past Us; Neither Felt, But Only In The Punishment.

Be Thine Own Palace, Or The World's Thy Jail.

Tis True, 'tis Day; What Though It Be? O Wilt Thou Therefore Rise From Me? Why Should We Rise, Because 'tis Light? Did We Lie Down, Because 'twas Night? Love Which In Spite Of Darkness Brought Us Hither Should In Despite Of Light Keep Us Together.

I Throw Myself Down In My Chamber, And I Call In, And Invite God, And His Angels Thither, And When They Are There, I Neglect God And His Angels, For The Noise Of A Fly, For The Rattling Of A Coach, For The Whining Of A Door.

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.

How Imperfect Is All Our Knowledge!

When My Mouth Shall Be Filled With Dust, And The Worm Shall Feed, And Feed Sweetly Upon Me, When The Ambitious Man Shall Have No Satisfaction If The Poorest Alive Tread Upon Him, Nor The Poorest Receive Any Contentment In Being Made Equal To Princes, For They Shall Be Equal But In Dust.

We Are All Conceived In Close Prison; In Our Mothers Wombs, We Are Close Prisoners All; When We Are Born, We Are Born But To The Liberty Of The House; Prisoners Still, Though Within Larger Walls; And Then All Our Life Is But A Going Out To The Place Of Execution, To Death.

My Love Though Silly Is More Brave.

Yesternight The Sun Went Hence, And Yet Is Here Today.

We Love And Understand Talent; We Wish It Be Within Us. The Truly Gifted, Those Exceptional Few, Must Wait For The World To Catch Up.

Sleep With Clean Hands, Either Kept Clean All Day By Integrity Or Washed Clean At Night By Repentance.

Who Ever Comes To Shroud Me, Do Not Harm Nor Question Much That Subtle Wreath Of Hair, Which Crowns My Arm; The Mystery, The Sign You Must Not Touch, For 'tis My Outward Soul, Viceroy To That, Which Then To Heaven Being Gone, Will Leave This To Control, And Keep These Limbs, Her Provinces, From Dissolution.

Nature's Great Masterpiece, An Elephant; The Only Harmless Great Thing.

Any Man's Death Diminishes Me, Because I Am Involved In Mankind; And Therefore Never Send To Know For Whom The Bell Tolls; It Tolls For Thee.

And To 'scape Stormy Days, I Choose An Everlasting Night.

If Ever Any Beauty I Did See, Which I Desired, And Got, 'twas But A Dream Of Thee.

Our Two Souls Therefore Which Are One, Though I Must Go, Endure Not Yet A Breach, But An Expansion, Like Gold To Airy Thinness Beat.

Enjoyment Always Has A Spoiling, Otherwise It Cannot Be So.

Busy Old Fool, Unruly Sun, Why Dost Thou Thus Through Windows And Through Curtains Call On Us? Must To Thy Motions Lovers Seasons Run?

Men Perish With Whispering Sins-nay, With Silent Sins, Sins That Never Tell The Conscience That They Are Sins, As Often With Crying Sins; And In Hell There Shall Meet As Many Men That Never Thought What Was Sin, As That Spent All Their Thoughts In The Compassing Of Sin.

And New Philosophy Calls All In Doubt, The Element Of Fire Is Quite Put Out; The Sun Is Lost, And The Earth, And No Man's Wit Can Well Direct Him Where To Look For It. And Freely Men Confess That This World's Spent, When In The Planets, And The Firmament They Seek So Many New; Then See That This Is Crumbled Out Again To His Atomies. 'tis All In Pieces, All Coherence Gone; All Just Supply, And All Relation: Prince, Subject, Father, Son, Are Things Forgot.

Reason Is Our Soul's Left Hand, Faith Her Right, By These We Reach Divinity

But I Do Nothing Upon Myself, And Yet I Am My Own Executioner.

Pleasure Is None, If Not Diversified.

Here Lies A She Sun, And A He Moon There; She Gives The Best Light To His Sphere; Or Each Is Both, And All, And So They Unto One Another Nothing Owe; And Yet They Do, But Are So Just And Rich In That Coin Which They Pay, That Neither Would, Nor Needs Forbear, Nor Stay; Neither Desires To Be Spared Nor To Spare. They Quickly Pay Their Debt, And Then Take No Acquittances, But Pay Again; They Pay, They Give, They Lend, And So Let Fall No Such Occasion To Be Liberal. More Truth, More Courage In These Two Do Shine, Than All Thy Turtles Have And Sparrows, Valentine.

Goe And Catche A Falling Starre, Get With Child A Mandrake Root, Tell Me, Where All Past Yeares Are, Or Who Cleft The Divel's Foot. Teach Me To Hear Mermaides' Singing, Or To Keep Of Envies Stinging, And Finde What Winde Serves To Advance An Honest Minde.

All Other Things To Their Destruction Draw, Only Our Love Hath No Decay.

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