John Donne
Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Believe
The Psalms foretell what I, what any shall do and suffer and say.Collection: Suffering
God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath.Collection: Death
Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a damper.Collection: Spirit
The flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can.Collection: Doe
Women are like the arts, forced unto none, Open to all searchers, unprized, if unknown.Collection: Art
Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls, The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrols.Collection: Heaven
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.Collection: Fall
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.Collection: Lying
All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay.Collection: Decay
Love is a growing, or full constant light; And his first minute, after noon, is night.Collection: Love
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.Collection: Sleep
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?Collection: Love
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.Collection: Stars
...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.Collection: Love Is
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.Collection: Philosophy
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.Collection: Thee
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Good Night
O how feeble is man's power, that if good fortune fall, cannot add another hour, nor a lost hour recall!Collection: Fall
Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today.Collection: Today
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.Collection: Hair
There is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world, and a tacit reprehension of them who require, or who need miracles.Collection: Miracle
That thou remember them, some claim as debt; I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.Collection: Thinking
Never start with tomorrow to reach eternity. Eternity is not being reached by small steps.Collection: Small Steps
I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call and invite God and his angels thither.Collection: Angel
Lust-bred diseases rot thee.Collection: Lust
It is too little to call man a little world; Except God, man is a diminutive to nothing.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Love
I find no abhorring in my appetite.Collection: Appetite
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.Collection: Love
And to 'scape stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.Collection: Night
If I lose at play, I blaspheme; if my fellow loses, he blasphemes. So, God is always the loser.Collection: Sports
Kind pity chokes my spleen.Collection: Kind
My love though silly is more brave.Collection: Silly
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.Collection: War
Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow, And for our children we reserve tomorrow.Collection: Children
To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.Collection: Travel
To an incompetent judge I must not lie, but I may be silent; to a competent I must answer.Collection: Lying
Our faults are not seen, But past us; neither felt, but only in The punishment.Collection: Past
Since you would save none of me, I bury some of you.Collection: Save Nature
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.Collection: Dating
Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.Collection: Heart