John Donne

So short is life, that every pesant strives, In a torn house, or field, to have three lives

Old Gransires talk of yesterday with sorrow: And for our children we reserve to-morrow.

Alas, we scarce live long enough to try Whether a true made clock run right or lie.

Where is this mankind now; who lives to age, Fit to be made Methusalem his page?

And when the very Stature thus erect, Did that Soul a good way towards heaven direct

So spacious and large, that every Soul Did a fair Kingdom, and large Realm controul

When as the age was long, the sise was great; Man’s growth confess’d, and recompenc’d the meat

When, if a slow pac’d star had stoln away From the observer’s marking, he might stay Two or three hundred years to see’t again, And then make up his observation plain

When, Stag, and Raven, and the long-liv’d tree, Compar’d with man, dy’d in minority

When as the Sun and man did seem to strive, (Joynt-tenants of the world) who should survive

And yet we do not that; we are not men: There is not now that mankind, which was then

We do delightfully our selves allow To that consumption; and profusely blinde We kill our selves to propagate our kinde

For that first marriage was our funeral: One woman at one blow, then kill’d us all, And singly, one by one they kill us now.

They were to good ends, and they are so still, But accessory, and principal in ill

How wity’s ruin, how importunate Upon mankind? it labour’d to frustrate Even God’s purpose; and made woman, sent For man’s relief, cause of his languishment

poor mothers cry, That Children come not right nor orderly, Except they headlong come and fall upon An ominous precipitation.

We are born ruinous

And can there be worse sickness, than to know, That we are never well, nor can be so?

There is no health; Physitians say that we, At best, enjoy but a neutrality.

For with due temper men do then forgoe, Or covet things, when they their true worth know