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 is? Yet there are more delays, for where is he? He comes and passed 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

All kings and all their favorites All glory of honors beauties wits The sun itself which makes time 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 to-morrow hath nor yesterday Running it never runs from us away But truly keeps his first last everlasting day.

— John Donne

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated... As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all... No man is an island, entire of itself... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

And to 'scale stormy days, I choose an everlasting night.

— John Donne

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no.

— John Donne

At the round earth's imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'er throw, All whom war, DEA[r]the, age, ages, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;For, if above all these sins abound,'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, When we are there. Here on this lowly ground, Teach me how to repent, for that's as goods if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

— John Donne

Be thine own palace or the world's thy jail.

— John Donne