| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Divine Poems | | Resurrection, Imperfect |
| | | SLEEP, sleep, old sun, thou canst not have repass’d, | |
| As yet, the wound thou took’st on Friday last; | |
| Sleep then, and rest; the world may bear thy stay; | |
| A better sun rose before thee to-day; | |
| Who—not content to enlighten all that dwell | 5 |
| On the earth’s face, as thou—enlighten’d hell, | |
| And made the dark fires languish in that vale, | |
| As at thy presence here our fires grow pale; | |
| Whose body, having walk’d on earth, and now | |
| Hasting to heaven, would—that He might allow | 10 |
| Himself unto all stations, and fill all— | |
| For these three days become a mineral. | |
| He was all gold when He lay down, but rose | |
| All tincture, and doth not alone dispose | |
| Leaden and iron wills to good, 1 but is | 15 |
| Of power to make e’en sinful flesh like his. | |
| Had one of those, whose credulous piety | |
| Thought that a soul one might discern and see | |
| Go from a body, at this sepulchre been, | |
| And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen, | 20 |
| He would have justly thought this body a soul, | |
If not of any man, yet of the whole.
Desunt Caetera. | |
|
|
|
