John Donne (1572–1631) was an English poet, prose writer, and clergyman. His metaphysical poetry is among the most significant works in English literature.
Donne was not a professional poet at any point in his career. He published little of his work, sharing it instead among his friends and with people who cared about his advancement.
Donne is noted for his Satires (c.1590–99,) Elegies (c.1590–99,) and for his love poems, which appeared in the collection Songs and Sonnets. These are considered some of the finest collections of love lyrics in English literature.
Donne’s later works, such as An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) became more philosophical. His Holy Sonnets (1633) represents some of the greatest spiritual poems ever written. He wrote both the famous “Hymn to God the Father” and his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) during a severe illness in 1623.
Donne’s rejection of Catholicism and conversion to Anglicanism is evident in the prose-work Pseudo-Martyr (1610.) He was ordained in 1615 and became Dean (1621) of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he became famous for his sermons.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Donne
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Sin
Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
—John Donne
Topics: Suffering
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
—John Donne
Topics: Love, Lovers
Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.
—John Donne
Topics: Prayer
God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
—John Donne
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.
—John Donne
Topics: Letters
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Family
When I died last, and, Dear, I die as often as from thee I go though it be but an hour ago and lovers hours be full eternity.
—John Donne
Topics: Last Words
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Dying, Exercise, Death
Reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right;
By these we reach divinity, that’s you;
Their loves, who have the blessing of your light,
Grew from their reason ; mine from fair faith grew.
—John Donne
Topics: Belief, One liners, Reason, Faith
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
—John Donne
Topics: Letters, Romance
As soon as there was two there was pride
—John Donne
Topics: Pride
But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.
—John Donne
Topics: Mistakes
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more.
—John Donne
Topics: Immortality
Of all commentaries upon the Scriptures, good examples are the best and the liveliest.
—John Donne
Topics: Example
Who are a little wise the best fools be.
—John Donne
Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me, why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest, by cursed Cain’s race invented be, and blest Seth vexed us with Astronomy.
—John Donne
Topics: Scientists, Science
To be no part of any body, is to be nothing.
—John Donne
Topics: The Body
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Prison
Full nakedness! All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, to taste whole joys.
—John Donne
Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
—John Donne
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Miracles, Wonder
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
—John Donne
Topics: Love
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Love
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.
—John Donne
Topics: Dying, Death
Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
—John Donne
Topics: Self-reliance
As he that fears God hears nothing else, so, he that sees God sees every thing else.
—John Donne
Topics: Faith
Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant;
the only harmless great thing.
—John Donne
Topics: Greatness & Great Things
Between cowardice and despair, valour is gendered.
—John Donne
Topics: Courage, Cowardice
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