Although the poet John Donne lived so long ago, some phrases from his writing still linger with us today, such as "no man is an island," "death be not proud," and "for whom the bell tolls," which provided the title for one of Ernest Hemingway's novels.
John Donne used poems as a means of metaphysical inquiry and meditation as well as for very sensual expression. His daringly original use of imagery and conceits to lead the mind to profound understandings marked a new, intellectual approach to poetry. Like Shakespeare, Donne was a genius at making common words yield up rich, poetic meaning. His thought is complex, but his poems unfold in a logical way.
This collection includes songs, satires, elegies, selections from The Anniversaries, and divine poems.
Contents are:
I. Divine Poems
"Resurrection, Imperfect"
"Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward"
"From the Lamentations of Jeremy"
"Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness"
"A Hymn to Christ, at the Author's Last Going into Germany"
"A Hymn to God the Father"
II. From The Anniversaries
"An Anatomy of the World"
"Of the Progress of the Soul"
III. Songs, Satires, Elegies
"The Expiration"
"The Computer"
"The Bait"
"Song"
"Love's Deity"
"Woman's Contancy"
"The Indifferent"
"Community"
"The Curse"
"The Flea"
"The Message"
"The Apparition"
"The Broken Heart"
"Break of Day"
"Confined Love"
"From Sappho to Philaenis"
"To His Mistress Going to Bed (Elegy 19)" "The Good Morrow"
"The Sun Rising"
"Jealousy (Elegy 1)"
"Love's Exchange"
"The Will"
"Satire 2"
"Satire 3"
"From Metempsychosis"
"The Storm"
"The Calm"
"To Sir Henry Wotton"
"His Picture (Elegy 5"
"On His Mistress (Elegy 16)"
"The Dream"
"The Prohibition"
"The Canonization"
"Air and Angels"
"The Ecstasy"
"A Fever"
"Lover's Infiniteness"
"The Anniversary"
"A Valediciton: of Weeping"
"Song"
"A Valediciton: Forbidding Mouring"
"The Undertaking"
"The Funeral"
"The Relic"
"Twicknam Garden"
"A Lecture upon the Shadow"
"A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day"
"The Autumnal (Elegy 9)"
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To John Donne
Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife.
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!
—
Ben Johnson