Quotes
Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; She gives the best light to his sphere; Or each is both, and all, and so. They unto one another nothing owe; And yet they do, but are. So just and rich in that coin which they pay, That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. They quickly pay their debt, and then. Take no acquittances, but pay again; They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall. No such occasion to be liberal. More truth, more courage...
John Donne
Up then, fair phoenix bride, frustrate the sun; Thyself from thine affection. Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye. All lesser birds will take their jollity. Up, up, fair bride, and call. Thy stars from out their several boxes, take. Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make. Thyself a constellation of them all; And by their blazing signify. That a great princess falls, but doth not die. Be thou a new star, that to us portends. Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends.
John Donne
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. If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where. Lives a woman...
John Donne
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. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth if th' other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Suth wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness...
John Donne
A bride, before a "Good-night" could be said,
Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,
As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied.
But now she's laid; what though she be?
Yet there are more delays, for where is he?
He comes and passeth through sphere after sphere;
First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere.
Let not this day, then, but this night be thine;
Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine.
John Donne
Amiri Baraka Poet
Ezra Pound Poet
Jupiter Hammon Poet
Paul Engle Poet
Shel Silverstein Poet