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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.

-John Donne

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The Phoenix Riddle Hath

John Donne

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Death Is An Ascension To A Better Library.

In Heaven It Is Always Autumn.

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

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

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.

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

Then Love Is Sin, And Let Me Sinful Be.

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

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!

Who Are A Little Wise The Best Fools Be.

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

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.

Who Knows His Virtues Name Or Place, Hath None.

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.

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

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?

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.

Sleep Is Pain's Easiest Salve

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?

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

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.

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

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.

I Am A Little World Made Cunningly.

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.

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

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?

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

Positive Attitude

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

On A Huge Hill, Cragged, And Steep, Truth Stands, And Hee That Will Reach Her, About Must, And About Must Goo.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Find No Abhorring In My Appetite.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Lust-bred Diseases Rot Thee.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Can There Be Worse Sickness, Than To Know That We Are Never Well, Nor Can Be So?

All Kings, And All Their Favorites, All Glory Of Honors, Beauties, Wits, The Sun Itself, Which Makes Times, As They Pass, Is Elder By A Year, Now, Than It Was When Thou And I First One Another Saw: All Other Things, To Their Destruction Draw, Only Our Love Hath No Decay; This, No Tomorrow Hash, Nor Yesterday, Running, It Never Runs From Us Away, But Truly Keeps His First, Last, Everlasting Day.

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

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

Love Built On Beauty, Soon As Beauty, Dies.

Festive Alcohol Sometimes Leads To An Excess Of Honesty.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Pleasure Is None, If Not Diversified.

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

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

No Man Is An Island Unto Himself.

Nature Hath No Goal Though She Hath Law.

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

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

How Great Love Is, Presence Best Trial Makes, But Absence Tries How Long This Love Will Be.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

To Roam Giddily, And Be Everywhere But At Home, Such Freedom Doth A Banishment Become.

More Than Kisses, Letters Mingle Souls.

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.

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

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

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.

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

My Love Though Silly Is More Brave.

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.

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.

Thy Face Is Mine Eye, And Mine Is Thine.

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

Other Men's Crosses Are Not My Crosses.

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

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.

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

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

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.

How Imperfect Is All Our Knowledge!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

Only Our Love Hath No Decay; This, No Tomorrow Hath, Nor Yesterday, Running It Never Runs From Us Away, But Truly Keeps His First, Last, Everlasting Day.

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

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

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. If They Be Two, They Are Two So As Stiff Twin Compasses Are Two; Thy Soul, The Fixed Foot, Makes No Show To Move, But Doth If Th' Other Do. And Though It In The Center Sit, Yet When The Other Far Doth Roam, It Leans And Hearkens After It, And Grows Erect, As That Comes Home. Suth Wilt Thou Be To Me, Who Must Like Th' Other Foot, Obliquely Run; Thy Firmness Makes My Circle Just, And Makes Me End Where I Began.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Day Breaks Not, It Is My Heart.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Between Cowardice And Despair, Valour Is Gendred.

...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.

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

I Sing The Progress Of A Deathless Soul.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 Worshiped Be.

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

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.

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

But Think That We Are But Turned Aside To Sleep.

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.

Without Outward Declarations, Who Can Conclude An Inward Love?

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.

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

There Is No Health; Physicians Say That We, At Best, Enjoy But Neutrality.

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?

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

Truth And Falsehood

Young Men Mend Not Their Sight By Using Old Men's Spectacles.

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.

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.

As Soon As There Was Two There Was Pride.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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