John Donne: Doing

John Donne was English poet. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
John Donne: 230   quotes 28   likes

“Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.”

John Donne

The Extasy, line 71
Source: The Complete English Poems

Love , Books , Soul

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

John Donne The Good-Morrow

Songs and Sonnets (1633), The Good-Morrow
Context: p>I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.</p

Love

“He was the Word, that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.”

John Donne

Divine Poems, "On the Sacrament"; attributed by many writers to Elizabeth I. It is not in the original edition of Donne, but first appears in the edition of 1654, p. 352.
Disputed

“And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.”

John Donne

Song (Go and Catch a Falling Star), stanzas 2-3

Falseness

“I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that I fear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase of the disease… my weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure, my strength is from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely.”

John Donne

VI. Metuit. The physician is afraid
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

Death , God , Fear , Disease

“Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.”

John Donne

No. 18, Love's Progress, line 1
Elegies

Love , Sea

“Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints forevermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.”

John Donne

Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness, stanza 1

Music , Thinking

“Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm
Nor question much
That subtle wreth of hair, which crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign you must not touch,
For 'tis my outward soul,
Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone,
Will leave this to control,
And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.”

John Donne The Funeral

The Funeral, stanza 1

Soul , Question

“If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.”

John Donne

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, stanza 7

Soul

“Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best,
To use my self in jest
Thus by feigned deaths to die.”

John Donne

Song (Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go), stanza 1

Love , Death , World , Hope

“Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far, as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven, that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere.”

John Donne

IV. Mediscque Vocatur; The physician is sent for.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

World , Sun , Sea

“How deepe do we dig, and for how coarse gold?”

John Donne

Meditation 13
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

“Absence, hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;
Do what thou canst for alteration”

John Donne

Poem Present in Absence http://www.bartleby.com/101/197.html
Attribution likely but not proven http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7937(191107)6%3A3%3C383%3ATAO%22HT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B

“I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner.”

John Donne

Meditation 12
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

“We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are composed and made,
For the' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But oh alas, so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They're ours, though they're not we; we are
The intelligences, they the spheres.”

John Donne

The Ecstasy, line 45

Soul , Intelligence , Change

“I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.”

John Donne Songs and Sonnets

Songs and Sonnets (1633), The Good-Morrow

Soul , Sea , Country , Love