| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Divine Poems | | Hymn to God, my God, in my Sickness |
| | | SINCE I am coming to that Holy room, | |
| Where, with Thy 1 choir of saints for evermore, | |
| I shall be made Thy music; as I come | |
| I tune the instrument 2 here at the door, | |
| And what I must do then, think here before; | 5 |
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| Whilst my physicians by their love 3 are grown | |
| Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie | |
| Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown | |
| That this is my south-west discovery, | |
| Per fretum febris, by these straits to die; | 10 |
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| I joy, that in these straits I see my west; | |
| For, though those currents yield return to none, | |
| What shall my west hurt me? As west and east | |
| In all flat maps—and I am one—are one, | |
| So death doth touch the resurrection. | 15 |
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| Is the Pacific sea my home? Or are | |
| The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? | |
| Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? | |
| All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them | |
| Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem. | 20 |
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| We think that Paradise and Calvary, | |
| Christ’s cross and Adam’s tree, stood in one place; | |
| Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; | |
| As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face, | |
| May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace. | 25 |
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| So, in His purple wrapp’d, receive me, Lord; | |
| By these His thorns, give me His other crown; | |
| And as to others’ 4 souls I preach’d Thy word, | |
| Be this my text, my sermon to mine own, | |
| “Therefore that He may raise, 5 the Lord throws down.” | 30 |
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