Quotes by John Donne

Loves mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book.

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

How blest am I in this discovering thee!To enter in these bonds is to be free;Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

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.

At the round earths imagined corners blowYour trumpets, angels, and arise, ariseFrom death, you numberless infinitiesOf souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;All whom the flood did, and fire shall oerthrow,All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyesShall behold God, and never taste deaths woe.But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;For, if above all these my sins abound,Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,Teach me how to repent, for thats as goodAs if Thou hadst seald my pardon with Thy blood.

Go and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devils foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envys stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.If thou best born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou returnst, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal

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

If ever any beauty I did see,Which I desired, and got, twas but a dream of thee.

Nature hath no goal, though she hath law.

This is joys bonfire, then, where loves strong artsMake of so noble individual partsOne fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts.

Be thine own palace, or the worlds thy jail.

Dear love, for nothing less than theeWould I have broke this happy dream;It was a themeFor reason, much too strong for fantasy,Therefore thou wakdst me wisely; yetMy dream thou brokst not, but continuedst it.Thou art so true that thoughts of thee sufficeTo make dreams truths, and fables histories;Enter these arms, for since thou thoughtst it best,Not to dream all my dream, lets act the rest.

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 shes 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.

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 soThey unto one another nothing owe;And yet they do, but areSo 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 thenTake no acquittances, but pay again;They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fallNo such occasion to be liberal.More truth, more courage in these two do shine,Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine.

That our affections kill us not, nor dye.

Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,All just supply, and all relation;Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,For every man alone thinks he hath gotTo be a phoenix, and that then can beNone of that kind, of which he is, but he.

Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,For, he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

We say that the world is made of sea and land, as though they were equal; but we know that there is more sea in the Western than in the Eastern hemisphere. We say that the firmament is full of stars, as though it were equally full; but we know that there are more stars under the Northern than the Southern pole. We say the element of man are misery and happiness, as though he had an equal proportion of both, and the days of man vicissitudinary, as though he had as many good days as ill, and that he lived under a perpetual equinoctial, night and day equal, good and ill fortune in the same measure. But it is far from that; he drinks in misery, and he tastes happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walk in happiness: and, which is worstn his misery is positive and dogmatical, his happiness is but disputable and problematical: all men call misery misery, but happiness changes the name by the taste of man.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we are met, And cloisterd in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph’st, and sayst that thou Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.