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?
Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it I do believe, and take it.
I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him merely seize me, and only declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwreck, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.
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?
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.
True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.