Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Words to drink

Not my words--recent paragraphs have been unbeautiful struggles to finish sentences.

Here is a sonnet by John Donne, one of my favorite poets. If I am not mistaken, this is one of his Holy Sonnets, some of my favorite poems. Altogether, he seems a pretty nifty guy, and certainly handles the English language very well.
If you are so inclined, I recommend reading it aloud. I know I like to.

"Death be not proud, though some have called thee"

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou are slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

I also love especially this one.

2 comments:

Daniel said...

it is almost 10pm and i am too tired to read this and think about what i am reading. thanks for the heads-up about it though. i will return!

i will look into this nifty fellow and his writing.

Daniel said...

okay, i have read it again and i am not so tired tonight.

this poem is very cool and means a lot in-light of the talks we have been having. thanks for posting this and directing my wandering attention to it. i think i will be coming back to read it in the morning again - i really like it.


how is the paragraph a day going?