by John Donne
For ’tis no child, but monster; therefore, cross
Your joy in crosses, else ’tis double loss,
And cross thy senses, else, both they and thou
Must perish soon and to destruction bow.
For if the’eye seek good objects, and will take
No cross from bad, we cannot ’scape a snake.
So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking, cross the rest,
Make them indifferent; call nothing best.
But most the eye needs crossing that can roam
[50] And move; to th’others th’objects must come home.
And cross thy heart, for that in man alone
Points downwards and hath palpitation.
Cross those dejections when it downward tends,
And when it to forbidden heights pretends.
And as the brain through bony walls doth vent
By sutures, which a cross’s form present,
So when thy brain works, ere thou utter it,
Cross and correct concupiscence of wit.
Be covetous of crosses, let none fall.
[60] Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all.
Then doth the cross of Christ work faithfully
Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly
That cross’s pictures much, and with more care
That cross’s children, which our crosses are.
Resurrection, Imperfect
Sleep, sleep old Sun; thou canst not have repast
As yet the wound thou took’st on Friday last.
Sleep, then, and rest; the world may bear thy stay.
A better sun rose before thee today
Who, not content to’enlighten all that dwell
On the earth’s face, as thou enlight’ned hell,
And made the dark fires languish in that vale
As, at thy presence here, our fires grow pale.
Whose body, having walked on earth, and now
[10] Hasting to heaven, would, that He might allow
Himself unto all stations and fill all,
For these three days become a mineral.
He was all gold when He lay down, but rose
All tincture, and doth not alone dispose
Leaden and iron wills to good, but is
Of power to make even sinful flesh like His.
Had one of those, whose credulous piety
Thought that a soul one might discern and see
Go from a body,’at this sepulchre been,
[20] And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen,
He would have justly thought this body a soul,
If, not of any man, yet of the whole.
Desunt cætera.
The Annunciation and Passion
Tamely frail body,’abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’is all;
She sees a cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
[10] Of life, at once, not yet alive, yet dead;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha.
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen.
At once a son is promised her and gone,
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully’a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
[20] Th’abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the farthest west is east)
Of the’angel’s Ave’and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these;
As by the self-fixed pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the’other is, and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray;
So God by his Church, nearest to Him, we know,
[30] And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and his Church, as cloud, to one end both:
This Church, by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one.
Or ’twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the Last Judgement but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
[40] Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all;
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy’a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.
A Litany
I
The Father
Father of heaven, and Him by whom
It, and us for it, and all else, for us
Thou madest and govern’st ever, come
And recreate me, now grown ruinous.
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by self-murder, red.
From this red earth, O Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned
I may rise up from death before I’am dead.
II
The Son
[10] O Son of God, who seeing two things,
Sin and death crept in, which were never made,
By bearing one, tried’st with what stings
The other could Thine heritage invade.
O be Thou nailed unto my heart
And crucified again,
Part not from it, though it from Thee would part,
But let it be by applying so Thy pain,
Drowned in Thy blood, and in Thy passion slain.
III
The Holy Ghost
O Holy Ghost, whose temple I
[20] Am, but of mud walls and condensed dust,
And being sacrilegiously
Half wasted with youth’s fires of pride and lust,
Must with new storms be weather-beat.
Double in my heart Thy flame,
Which let devout sad tears intend; and let
(Though this glass lantern, flesh, do suffer maim)
Fire, sacrifice, priest, altar be the same.
IV
The Trinity
O blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to philosophy but milk to faith,
[30] Which, as wise serpents diversely
Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,
As You distinguished undistinct
By power, love, knowledge be,
Give me a such self different instinct,
Of these let all me elemented be
Of power, to love, to know You, unnumbered three.
V
The Virgin Mary
For that fair blessed mother-maid,
Whose flesh redeemed us; that she-cherubim,
Which unlocked paradise, and made
[40] One claim for innocence, and disseiz’d sin,
Whose womb was a strange heav’n, for there
God clothed Himself and grew,
Our zealous thanks we pour. As her deeds were
Our helps, so are her prayers; nor can she sue
In vain, who hath such titles unto You.
VI
The Angels
And since this life our nonag
e is,
And we in wardship to Thine angels be,
Native in heaven’s fair palaces
Where we shall be but denizened by Thee,
[50] As th’earth conceiving by the sun
Yields fair diversity,
Yet never knows which course that light doth run,
So let me study, that mine actions be
Worthy their sight, though blind in how they see.
VII
The Patriarchs
And let Thy patriarchs’ desire
(Those great grandfathers of Thy church, which saw
More in the cloud than we in fire,
Whom nature cleared more, than us grace and law,
And now in heaven still pray, that we
[60] May use our new helps right)
Be sanctified and fructify in me.
Let not my mind be blinder by more light,
Nor faith by reason added, lose her sight.
VIII
The Prophets
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
Thy will, and it express
[70] In rhythmic feet, in common pray for me,
That I by them excuse not my excess
In seeking secrets, or poeticness.
IX
The Apostles
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’hast let me know
That their books are divine.
May they pray still and be heard, that I go
[80] Th’old broad way in applying; O decline
Me when my comment would make Thy word mine.
X
The Martyrs
And since Thou so desirously
Didst long to die, that long before Thou could’st,
And long since Thou no more could’st die,
Thou in Thy scattered mystic body would’st
In Abel die, and ever since
In Thine, let their blood come
To beg for us a discreet patience
Of death, or of worse life: for, O, to some
[90] Not to be martyrs is a martyrdom.
XI
The Confessors
Therefore with Thee triumpheth there
A virgin squadron of white confessors,
Whose bloods betrothed, not married, were,
Tendered, not taken by those ravishers.
They know and pray that we may know,
In every Christian
Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow,
Temptations martyr us alive; a man
Is to himself a Diocletian.
XII
The Virgins
[100] The cold white snowy nunnery,
Which, as Thy mother, their high abbess sent
Their bodies back again to Thee,
As Thou had’st lent them, clean and innocent,
Though they have not obtained of Thee,
That or Thy church, or I
Should keep, as they, our first integrity.
Divorce Thou sin in us or bid it die,
And call chaste widowhead virginity.
XIII
The Doctors
Thy sacred academy above
[110] Of doctors, whose pains have unclasped and taught
Both books of life to us (for love
To know Thy scriptures tells us we are wrought
In Thy other book), pray for us there,
That what they have misdone
Or mis-said, we to that may not adhere,
Their zeal may be our sin. Lord, let us run
Mean ways, and call them stars, but not the sun.
XIV
And whil’st this universal choir,
That church in triumph, this in warfare here,
[120] Warmed with one all-partaking fire
Of love, that none be lost, which cost Thee dear,
Prays ceaselessly,’and Thou hearken too
(Since to be gracious
Our task is treble: to pray, bear, and do),
Hear this prayer, Lord: O Lord, deliver us
From trusting in those prayers, though poured out thus.
XV
From being anxious or secure,
Dead clods of sadness or light squibs of mirth,
From thinking that great courts immure
[130] All or no happiness, or that this earth
Is only for our prison framed,
Or that Thou art covetous
To them whom Thou lovest, or that they are maimed
From reaching this world’s sweet, who seek Thee thus
With all their might, good Lord, deliver us.
XVI
From needing danger to be good,
From owing Thee yesterday’s tears today,
From trusting so much to Thy blood
That in that hope we wound our soul away,
[140] From bribing Thee with alms to excuse
Some sin more burdenous,
From light affecting in religion, news,
From thinking us all soul, neglecting thus
Our mutual duties, Lord, deliver us.
XVII
From tempting Satan to tempt us
By our connivance or slack company,
From measuring ill by vicious,
Neglecting to choke sin’s spawn, vanity,
From indiscreet humility,
[150] Which might be scandalous
And cast reproach on Christianity,
From being spies, or to spies pervious,
From thirst or scorn of fame, deliver us.
XVIII
Deliver us through Thy descent
Into the virgin, whose womb was a place
Of middle kind; and Thou being sent
To’ungracious us, stayed’st at her full of grace,
And through Thy poor birth, where first Thou
Glorified’st poverty,
[160] And yet soon after riches didst allow,
By accepting kings’ gifts in the Epiphany,
Deliver and make us to both ways free.
XIX
And through that bitter agony,
Which is still the agony of pious wits,
Disputing what distorted Thee
And interrupted evenness with fits,
And through Thy free confession
Though thereby they were then
Made blind, so that Thou might’st from them have gone,
[170] Good Lord, deliver us, and teach us when
We may not, and we may blind unjust men.
XX
Through Thy submitting all, to blows
Thy face, Thy clothes to spoil, Thy fame to scorn,
All ways which rage or justice knows,
And by which Thou could’st show, that Thou wast born,
And through Thy gallant humbleness
Which Thou in death didst show,
Dying before Thy soul they could express,
Deliver us from death, by dying so
[180] To this world, ere this world do bid us go.
XXI
When senses, which Thy soldiers are,
We arm against Thee, and they fight for sin,
When want, sent but to tame, doth war
And work despair a breach to enter in,
When plenty, God’s image and seal,
Makes us idolatrous,
And love it, not Him, whom it should reveal,
When we are moved to seem religious
Only to vent wit, Lord deliver us.
XXII
[190] In churches, when the’infirmity
Of him which speaks diminishes the word,<
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When magistrates do misapply
To us, as we judge, lay or ghostly sword,
When plague, which is Thine angel, reigns,
Or wars, Thy champions, sway,
When heresy, Thy second deluge, gains;
In th’hour of death, the’eve of last judgement day,
Deliver us from the sinister way.
XXIII
Hear us, O hear us, Lord; to Thee
[200] A sinner is more music when he prays
Than spheres or angels praises be
In panegyric halleluiahs.
Hear us, for till Thou hear us, Lord,
We know not what to say.
Thine ear to’our sighs, tears, thoughts gives voice and word.
O Thou, who Satan heard’st in Job’s sick day,
Hear Thyself now, for Thou in us dost pray.
XXIV
That we may change to evenness
This intermitting aguish piety,
[210] That snatching cramps of wickedness
And apoplexies of fast sin may die,
That music of Thy promises,
Not threats in thunder may
Awaken us to our just offices,
What in Thy book Thou dost, or creatures say,
That we may hear, Lord, hear us, when we pray.
XXV
That our ears’ sickness we may cure,
And rectify those labyrinths aright,
That we, by hark’ning, not procure
[220] Our praise, nor others’ dispraise so invite,
That we get not a slipperiness
And senselessly decline
From hearing bold wits jest at kings’ excess,
To’admit the like of majesty divine,
That we may lock our ears, Lord, open Thine.
XXVI
That living law, the magistrate,
Which to give us and make us physic, doth
Our vices often aggravate,
That preachers taxing sin before her growth,
[230] That Satan and envenomed men,
Which will, if we starve, dine
When they do most accuse us, may see then
Us, to amendment, hear them; Thee decline;
That we may open our ears, Lord, lock Thine.
XXVII
That learning, Thine ambassador,
From Thine allegiance we never tempt,
That beauty, paradise’s flower
For physic made, from poison be exempt,
That wit, borne apt, high good to do
[240] By dwelling lazily
On nature’s nothing, be not nothing too,
That our affections kill us not nor die,
Hear us, weak echoes, O Thou ear, and cry.
XXVIII
Son of God, hear us, and since Thou,