John Donne

“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,"So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant;But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admitAbsence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.But we, by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is,Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yetA 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 the 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.Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run;Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.”

“I did best when I had least truth for my subjects.”

“TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ; The sun is spent, and now his flasks Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ; The world's whole sap is sunk ;The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,Compared with me, who am their epitaph.”

“Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face."[The Autumnal]”

“If that be simply perfectestWhich can by no way be expresstBut negatives, my love is so.To All, which all love, I say no.Negative Love”

“My world's both parts, and 'o! Both parts must die.”

“Other men's crosses are not my crosses.”

“Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

“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.”

“Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant;the only harmless great thing.”

“And who understands? Not me, because if I did I would forgive it all.”

“Sir, more than kisses,letters mingle souls;For, thus friends absent speak.”

“Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for youAs yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bendYour force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,Take me to you, imprison me, for I,Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

“More than kisses, letters mingle souls.”

“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.”

“Death Be Not ProudDeath, 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.From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] 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.Thou'rt 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?One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

“That thou remember them, some claim as debt; I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.”

“I am two fools, I know,For loving, and for saying so.”

“Love, built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.”

“Yet nothing can to nothing fall,Nor any place be empty quite;Therefore I think my breast hath allThose pieces still, though they be not unite;And now, as broken glasses showA hundred lesser faces, soMy rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,But after one such love, can love no more.”

“I fix mine eye on thine, and therePity my picture burning in thine eye...”

“Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.”

“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.”

“At one blood labors to beget,Spirits as like as it can, Because such figures need to knit,that subtle knot which makes us man.”