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John Donne citations
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John Donne, né le 22 janvier 1572 à Londres et mort dans la même ville le 31 mars 1631, est un poète et prédicateur anglais du règne de Jacques Ier, considéré comme le chef de file de la poésie métaphysique. Son œuvre, d'une grande variété, comprend des poèmes d'amour, des sonnets religieux, des traductions du latin, des épigrammes, des élégies, des chansons et des sermons. Wikipedia  

✵ 1572 – 31. mars 1631
John Donne photo
John Donne: 115   citations 0   J'aime

John Donne: Citations en anglais

“Our two souls therefore which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.”

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John Donne

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, stanza 6

“But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep.”

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John Donne

Song (Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go), stanza 5

“I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.”

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John Donne

No. 80, preached at the funeral of Sir William Cokayne, December 12, 1626
LXXX Sermons (1640)

“Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.”

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John Donne

No. 3, preached on Christmas Day, 1625
LXXX Sermons (1640)

“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.”

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John Donne

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, stanza 7

“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.”

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John Donne

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

“The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts
Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests.”

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John Donne

No. 18, Love's Progress, line 61
Elegies

“If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?”

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John Donne livre Holy Sonnets

No. 9, line 1
Holy Sonnets (1633)

“She, and comparisons are odious.”

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John Donne

No. 8, The Comparison, line 54. Compare: "Comparisons are odious", John Fortescue, De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ, Chap. xix; "Comparisons are odorous", William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act iii, scene v
Elegies

“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.”

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John Donne

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

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

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John Donne

Meditation 13
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

“Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love.”

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John Donne

No. 7, Natures Lay Idiot, line 1
Elegies

“A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat; not afraid of starving, and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table, presented to feed him; not afraid of the sound of drums, and trumpets, and shot, and those, which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid, as that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field.”

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John Donne

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

“Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.”

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John Donne

Song (Go and Catch a Falling Star), stanza 1

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

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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.”

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John Donne

Meditation 12
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

“Send home my long strayed eyes to me,
Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee.”

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John Donne

The Message, stanza 1

“Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.”

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John Donne livre Holy Sonnets

No. 14, line 1
Holy Sonnets (1633)

“Take heed of loving me.”

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John Donne

The Prohibition, stanza 1

“No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

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John Donne livre Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Modern version: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Meditation 17. This was the source for the title of Ernest Hemingway's novel.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

“At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.”

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John Donne livre Holy Sonnets

No. 7, line 1
Holy Sonnets (1633)

“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.”

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John Donne

The Ecstasy, line 45

“Ah cannot we
As well as cocks and lions jocund be,
After such pleasures?”

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John Donne

Farewell to Love, stanza 3

“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.”

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John Donne Songs and Sonnets

Songs and Sonnets (1633), The Good-Morrow

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