Quote#Death
For I am every dead thing
Quote byJohn Donne · 1572–1631
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Songs and Sonnets, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, stanza 2.
English (original)
For I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.
— John Donne
More from John Donne
I sing the progress of a deathless soul.
So, of a lone unhaunted place possess’d, Did this soul’s second inn, built by the guest, This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For, thus friends absent speak.
And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam, Carrying his own house still, still is at home, Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail, Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy gaol.
Great Destiny, the commissary of God.
Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant, The only harmless great thing.