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The Poetry of John Donne

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run,
And do them still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did dhun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
Swear by thyself that at my death thy Sun
Shall shine as it shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done,
I have no more.

Death, be not proud

Death, 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 pictures be,
Much pleasure--then, from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of there bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art 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 passed, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Hero and Leander

Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground,
Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned.

Love's Deity

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost
Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he who loved me most
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.

Sure, they which make him god meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practiced it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was. It cannot be
Love till I love her that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prergative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.
Oh, where we wakened by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I
As though I felt the Worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too,
Which, since she loves before, I am loath to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate, and that must be
If she whom I love should love me.

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