The
Anniversary
by John
Donne
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All
Kings, and all their favourites, |
All
glory of honours, beauties, wits, |
The sun itself,
which makes times, as they pass, |
Is elder by a year
now than it was |
When thou and I
first one another saw : |
All other things to
their destruction draw, |
Only our
love hath no decay; |
This no tomorrow
hath, nor yesterday, |
Running it never
runs from us away, |
But truly keeps his first, last,
everlasting day.
|
Two
graves must hide thine and my corse; |
If one
might, death were no divorce. |
Alas, as well as
other Princes, we |
(Who Prince enough
in one another be) |
Must leave at last
in death these eyes and ears, |
Oft fed with true
oaths, and with sweet salt tears; |
But
souls where nothing dwells but love |
(All other thoughts
being inmates) then shall prove |
This, or a love
increasèd there above, |
When bodies to their graves,
souls from their graves remove.
|
And then
we shall be throughly blest; |
But we
no more than all the rest. |
Here upon earth
we're Kings, and none but we |
Can be such Kings,
nor of such objects be; |
Who is so safe as
we? where none can do |
Treason to us,
except one of us two. |
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.
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John Donne | Classic
Poems
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[ Anniversary ] [ Death be not Proud ] [ The Sun Rising ] |