Category John Donne

  From needing danger, to be good, From owing Thee yesterday’s tears to-day,   From trusting so much to Thy blood That in that hope we wound our soul away,               From bribing Thee with alms, to excuse  …

  From being anxious, or secure, Dead clods of sadness, or light squibs of mirth,   From thinking that great courts immure All, or no happiness, or that this earth               Is only for our prison framed,    …

  And whilst this universal quire, That Church in triumph, this in warfare here,   Warm’d with one all-partaking fire Of love, that none be lost, which cost Thee dear,               Prays ceaselessly, and Thou hearken too    …

  The sacred academy above Of Doctors, whose pains have unclasp’d, and taught   Both books of life to us—for love To know Thy scriptures tells us, we are wrote               In Thy other book—pray for us there,  …

  Therefore with Thee triumpheth there A virgin squadron of white confessors,   Whose bloods betroth’d not married were, Tender’d, not taken by those ravishers.               They know, and pray that we may know,          …

The cold white snowy nunnery,Which, as thy mother, their high abbess, sentTheir bodies back again to thee,As thou hadst lent them, clean and innocent,Though they have not obtained of thee,That or thy Church, or I,Should keep, as they, our first…

  And since Thou so desirously Didst long to die, that long before Thou couldst,   And long since Thou no more couldst die, Thou in thy scatter’d mystic body wouldst               In Abel die, and ever since  …

  And thy illustrious zodiac Of twelve apostles, which engirt this All,   —From whom whosoever do not take Their light, to dark deep pits throw down and fall ;—               As through their prayers Thou’st let me…

  Thy eagle-sighted prophets too, —Which were Thy Church’s organs, and did sound   That harmony which made of two One law, and did unite, but not confound ;               Those heavenly poets which did see      …

  And let Thy patriarchs’ desire, —Those great grandfathers of Thy Church, which saw   More in the cloud than we in fire, Whom nature clear’d more, than us grace and law,               And now in heaven still…