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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.

-John Donne

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I Would Not That

John Donne

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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.

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Oh Do Not Die, For I Shall Hate All Women So, When Thou Art Gone.

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.

O Lord, Never Suffer Us To Think That We Can Stand By Ourselves, And Not Need Thee.

I Will Not Look Upon The Quickening Sun, But Straight Her Beauty To My Sense Shall Run; The Air Shall Note Her Soft, The Fire Most Pure; Water Suggest Her Clear, And The Earth Sure; Time Shall Not Lose Our Passages.

To A Large Degree, Since The Beginning Of Time, Charisma Or The Lack Of It Has Impacted Upon Those In Quest Of Acclaim. As Media Expands, This Has Become Ever More Vital. Thus, Demeanor If Unappealing, Can Defeat One's Likelihood Of Success, Causing The Death Of Prospects Whilst They Are Still Embryonic.

And Dare Love That, And Say So Too, And Forget The He And She.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Great Sins Are Great Possessions; But Levities And Vanities Possess Us Too; And Men Had Rather Part With Christ Than With Any Possession.

And Now Good Morrow To Our Waking Souls, Which Watch Not One Another Out Of Fear; For Love, All Love Of Other Sights Controls, And Makes One Little Room, An Everywhere. Let Sea-discoverers To New Worlds Have Gone, Let Maps To Other, Worlds On Worlds Have Shown, Let Us Possess One World, Each Hath One, And Is One.

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

Let Man's Soul Be A Sphere, And Then, In This, The Intelligence That Moves, Devotion Is.

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

Pleasure Is None, If Not Diversified.

No Man Is An Island, Entire Of Itself; Every Man Is A Piece Of The Continent.

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

The Flea, Though He Kill None, He Does All The Harm He Can.

Festive Alcohol Sometimes Leads To An Excess Of Honesty.

My Love Though Silly Is More Brave.

Between Cowardice And Despair, Valour Is Gendred.

That Soul That Can Reflect Upon Itself, Consider Itself, Is More Than So.

Friends Are Ourselves.

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.

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

How Much Shall I Be Changed, Before I Am Changed!

Positive Attitude

Who Are A Little Wise The Best Fools Be.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Affliction Is A Treasure, And Scarce Any Man Hath Enough Of It.

The Sun Must Not Set Upon Anger, Much Less Will I Let The Sun Set Upon The Anger Of God Towards Me.

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

Poor Heretics There Be,which Think To Establish Dangerous Constancy,but I Have Told Them, ‘since You Will Be True,you Shall Be True To Them, Who Are False To You.

Chastity Is Not Chastity In An Old Man, But A Disability To Be Unchaste.

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

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

As Soon As There Was Two There Was Pride.

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

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

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

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

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

Men Are Sponges, Which, To Pour Out, Receive; Who Know False Play, Rather Than Lose, Deceive. For In Best Understandings Sin Began, Angels Sinn'd First, Then Devils, And Then Man. Only Perchance Beasts Sin Not ; Wretched We Are Beasts In All But White Integrity.

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.

So In A Voice, So In A Shapeless Flame, Angels Affect Us Often.

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?

I Find No Abhorring In My Appetite.

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.

I Observe The Physician With The Same Diligence As The Disease.

My Face In Thine Eye, Thine In Mine Appears, And True Plain Hearts Do In The Faces Rest; Where Can We Find Two Better Hemispheres, Without Sharp North, Without Declining West? Whatever Dies, Was Not Mix'd Equally; If Our Two Loves Be One, Or, Thou And I Love So Alike, That None Do Slacken, None Can Die.

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

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

Sleep Is Pain's Easiest Salve

As God Loves A Cheerful Giver, So He Also Loves A Cheerful Taker. Who Takes Hold Of His Gifts With A Glad Heart.

Man Is Not Only A Contributory Creature, But A Total Creature; He Does Not Only Make One, But He Is All; He Is Not A Piece Of The World, But The World Itself, And Next To The Glory Of God, The Reason Why There Is A World.

No Man Is An Island, Entire Of Itself; Every Man Is A Piece Of The Continent, A Part Of The Main. If A Clod Be Washed Away By The Sea, Europe Is The Less, As Well As If A Promontory Were, As Well As If A Manor Of Thy Friend's Or Of Thine Own Were: Any Man's Death Diminishes Me, Because I Am Involved In Mankind, And Therefore Never Send To Know For Whom The Bells Tolls; It Tolls For Thee.

The Distance From Nothing To A Little, Is Ten Thousand Times More, Than From It To The Highest Degree In This Life.

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.

Oft From New Truths, And New Phrase, New Doubts Grow, As Strange Attire Aliens The Men We Know.

Death Comes Equally To Us All, And Makes Us All Equal When It Comes.

God Affords No Man The Comfort, The False Comfort Of Atheism: He Will Not Allow A Pretending Atheist The Power To Flatter Himself, So Far, As To Seriously Think There Is No God.

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.

Batter My Heart, Three-personed God, For You As Yet But Knock; Breathe, Shine, And Seek To Mend; That I May Rise, And Stand, O'erthrow Me, And Bend Your Force To Break, Blow, Burn, And Make Me New.

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

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

And Swear No Where Lives A Woman True, And Fair.

I Sing The Progress Of A Deathless Soul.

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

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.

Then Love Is Sin, And Let Me Sinful Be.

Kind Pity Chokes My Spleen.

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

Wicked Is Not Much Worse Than Indiscreet.

Humiliation Is The Beginning Of Sanctification; And As Without This, Without Holiness, No Man Shall See God, Though He Pore Whole Nights Upon His Bible; So Without That, Without Humility, No Man Shall Hear God Speak To His Soul, Though He Hear Three Two-hour Sermons Every Day.

Now God Comes To Thee, Not As In The Dawning Of The Day, Not As In The Bud Of The Spring, But As The Sun At Noon To Illustrate All Shadows, As The Sheaves In Harvest, To Fill All Penuries, All Occasions Invite His Mercies, And All Times Are His Seasons.

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

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.

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?

A Bride, Before A "good-night" Could Be Said, Should Vanish From Her Clothes Into Her Bed, As Souls From Bodies Steal, And Are Not Spied. But Now She's Laid; What Though She Be? Yet There Are More Delays, For Where Is He? He Comes And Passeth Through Sphere After Sphere; First Her Sheets, Then Her Arms, Then Anywhere. Let Not This Day, Then, But This Night Be Thine; Thy Day Was But The Eve To This, O Valentine.

Love Was As Subtly Caught, As A Disease; But Being Got It Is A Treasure Sweet, Which To Defend Is Harder Than To Get: And Ought Not Be Profaned On Either Part, For Though 'tis Got By Chance, 'tis Kept By Art.

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.

The Whole Life Of Christ Was A Continual Passion; Others Die Martyrs But Christ Was Born A Martyr. He Found A Golgotha Even In Bethlehem, Where He Was Born; For To His Tenderness Then The Straws Were Almost As Sharp As The Thorns After, And The Manger As Uneasy At First As His Cross At Last. His Birth And His Death Were But One Continual Act, And His Christmas Day And His Good Friday Are But The Evening And Morning Of One And The Same Day. And As Even His Birth Is His Death, So Every Action And Passage That Manifests Christ To Us Is His Birth, For Epiphany Is Manifestation.

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

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

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

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 Wonder By My Troth, What Thou, And I Did, Till We Loved? Were We Not Weaned Till Then? But Sucked On Country Pleasures, Childishly? Or Snorted We In The Seven Sleepers' Den?

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

Take Me To You, Imprison Me, For I, Except You Enthrall Me, Never Shall Be Free, Nor Ever Chaste, Except You Ravish Me.

Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go, For Weariness Of Thee, Nor In Hope The World Can Show A Fitter Love For Me; But Since That I Must Die At Last, 'tis Best, To Use My Self In Jest Thus By Feign'd Deaths To Die.

As States Subsist In Part By Keeping Their Weaknesses From Being Known, So Is It The Quiet Of Families To Have Their Chancery And Their Parliament Within Doors, And To Compose And Determine All Emergent Differences There.

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

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.

Let Me Arrest Thy Thoughts, Wonder With Me, Why Ploughing, Building, Ruling And The Rest, Or Most Of Those Arts, Whence Our Lives Are Blessed, By Cursed Cain's Race Invented Be, And Blessed Seth Vexed Us With Astronomy.

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.

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

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

The Day Breaks Not, It Is My Heart.

One Short Sleep Past, We Wake Eternally, And Death Shall Be No More; Death, Thou Shalt Die.

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

All Occasions Invite His Mercies, And All Times Are His Seasons.

Nature Hath No Goal Though She Hath Law.

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

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

How Imperfect Is All Our Knowledge!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Call Not That Virginity A Virtue, Which Resideth Onely 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 It Self Upon Honest And Lawfull Terms, When Just Reason Requireth; And Until Then, Is Kept With A Modest Chastity Of Body And Mind.

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.

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

Religion Is Not A Melancholy, The Spirit Of God Is Not A Damper.

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.

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

Death, Thou Shalt Die.

Let Not Thy Divining Heart Forethink Me Any Ill; Destiny May Take Thy Part, And May Thy Fears Fulfill.

Nothing But Man Of All Envenomed Things, Doth Work Upon Itself, With Inborn Stings.

It Is Too Little To Call Man A Little World; Except God, Man Is A Diminutive To Nothing.

At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners, Blow Your Trumpets, Angels, And Arise, Arise From Death, You Numberless Infinities Of Souls **** All Whom War, Dearth, Age, Agues, Tyrannies, Despair, Law, Chance, Hath Slain.

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

Other Men's Crosses Are Not My Crosses.

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.

To Know And Feel All This And Not Have The Words To Express It Makes A Human A Grave Of His Own Thoughts.

To Be No Part Of Any Body, Is To Be Nothing.

All Whom War, Dearth, Age, Agues, Tyrannies, Despair, Law, Chance, Hath Slain.

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

Keep Us, Lord, So Awake In The Duties Of Our Calling That We May Sleep In Thy Peace And Wake In Thy Glory.

Love Built On Beauty, Soon As Beauty, Dies.

As Peace Is Of All Goodness, So War Is An Emblem, A Hieroglyphic, Of All Misery.

In Heaven It Is Always Autumn.

What Gnashing Is Not A Comfort, What Gnawing Of The Worm Is Not A Tickling, What Torment Is Not A Marriage Bed To This Damnation, To Be Secluded Eternally, Eternally, Eternally From The Sight Of God?

The World Is A Great Volume, And Man The Index Of That Book; Even In The Body Of Man, You May Turn To The Whole World.

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.

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.

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

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

Great Sorrows Cannot Speak.

No Spring Nor Summer Beauty Hath Such Grace As I Have Seen In One Autumnal Face.

We Give Each Other A Smile With A Future In It

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.

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

But Think That We Are But Turned Aside To Sleep.

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

Commemoration Of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator Of The Scriptures, 1922 A Memory Of Yesterday's Pleasures, A Fear Of Tomorrow's Dangers, A Straw Under My Knees, A Noise In My Ear, A Light In My Eye, An Anything, A Nothing, A Fancy, A Chimera In My Brain, Troubles Me In My Prayers.

Since You Would Save None Of Me, I Bury Some Of You.

And What Is So Intricate, So Entangling As Death? Who Ever Got Out Of A Winding Sheet?

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.

To An Incompetent Judge I Must Not Lie, But I May Be Silent; To A Competent I Must Answer.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Am A Little World Made Cunningly.

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

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

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.

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.

Poetry Is A Counterfeit Creation, And Makes Things That Are Not, As Though They Were

Good Is Not Good, Unless A Thousand It Possess, But Doth Waste With Greediness.

Who Knows His Virtues Name Or Place, Hath None.

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

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

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

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.

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.

If We Consider Eternity, Into That Time Never Entered; Eternity Is Not An Everlasting Flux Of Time, But Time Is As A Short Parenthesis In A Long Period; And Eternity Had Been The Same As It Is, Though Time Had Never Been.

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

Truth And Falsehood

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

He Must Pull Out His Own Eyes, And See No Creature, Before He Can Say, He Sees No God; He Must Be No Man, And Quench His Reasonable Soul, Before He Can Say To Himself, There Is No God.

How Many Times Go We To Comedies, To Masques, To Places Of Great And Noble Resort, Nay Even To Church Only To See The Company.

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

For I Am Every Dead Thing In Whom Love Wrought New Alchemy For His Art Did Express A Quintessence Even From Nothingness, From Dull Privations, And Lean Emptiness He Ruined Me, And I Am Re-begot Of Absence, Darkness, Death; Things Which Are Not.

Despair Is The Damp Of Hell, As Joy Is The Serenity Of Heaven.

Lust-bred Diseases Rot Thee.

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.

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

Busy Old Fool, Unruly Sun, Why Dost Thou Thus, Through Windows, And Through Curtains, Call On Us? Must To Thy Motions Lovers'seasons Run? Saucy Pedantic Wretch, Go Chide Late Schoolboys, And Sour Prentices, Go Tell Court-huntsmen That The King Will Ride, Call Countryants To Harvest Offices; Love, All Alike, No Season Knows, Nor Clime, Nor Hours, Days, Months, Which Are The Rags Of Time.

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.

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

Yet Nothing Can To Nothing Fall, Nor Any Place Be Empty Quite; Therefore I Think My Breast Hath All Those Pieces Still, Though They Be Not Unite; And Now, As Broken Glasses Show A Hundred Lesser Faces, So My Rags Of Heart Can Like, Wish, And Adore, But After One Such Love, Can Love No More.

Without Outward Declarations, Who Can Conclude An Inward Love?

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.

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.

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

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

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!

If They Be Two, They Are Two So As Stiff Twin Compasses Are Two, Thy Soul The Fixt Foot, Makes No Show To Move, But Doth, If The Other Do.

Death Is An Ascension To A Better Library.

Never Start With Tomorrow To Reach Eternity. Eternity Is Not Being Reached By Small Steps.

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