John Donne - Delphi Poets Series (63 page)

XIV. MEDITATION

I WOULD not make
Man
worse than hee is, Nor his Condition more miserable than it is. But could I though I would? As a man cannot
flatter God
, nor over prayse him, so a man cannot
injure
Man, nor undervalue him. Thus much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those
false Happinesses
, which he hath in this World, have their
times
, and their
seasons
, and their
critical dayes
, and they are
Judged
, and
Denominated
according to the times, when they befall us. What poore
Elements
are our
happinesses
made of, if
Tyme
,
Tyme
which wee can scarce consider to be
any thing
, be an essential part of our happines! All things are done in some
place;
but if we consider
Place
to be no more, but the next hollow
Superficies
of the
Ayre, Alas
, how thinne, and fluid a thing is
Ayre
, and how thinne a filme is a
Superficies
, and a
Superficies
of
Ayre!
All things are done in
time
too; but if we consider
Tyme
to be but the
Measure of Motion
, and howsoever it may seeme to have three
stations
,
past, present
, and
future
, yet the
first
and
last
of these are
not
(one is not, now, and the other is not yet) and that which you call
present
, is not
now
the same that it was, when you began to call it so in this
Line
, (before you sound that word,
present
, or that
Monosyllable
,
now
, the present, and the
Now
is past), if this
Imaginary halfe-nothing, Tyme
, be of the Essence of our
Happinesses
, how can they be thought
durable? Tyme
is not so; How can they bee thought to be?
Tyme
is not so; not so, considered in any of the
parts
thereof. If we consider
Eternity
, into that,
Tyme
never entred;
Eternity
is not an everlasting flux of
Tyme;
but
Tyme
is a short
parenthesis
in a longe
period;
and Eternity had been the same, as it is, though time had never beene; If we consider, not
Eternity
, but
Perpetuity
, not that which had no
Tyme
to beginne in, but which shall outlive
Tyme
and be,
when Tyme shall bee no more
, what
A Minute
is the life of the Durablest
Creature
, compared to that! And what a Minute is Mans life in respect of the
Sunnes
, or of a Tree! and yet how little of our
life
is
Occasion,
opportunity
to receyve good in; and how litle of that
occasion
, doe wee apprehend, and lay hold of! How busie and perplexed a
Cobweb
, is the
Happinesse
of Man here, that must bee made up with a
Watchfulnesse
, to lay hold upon
Occasion
, which is but a little peece of that, which is
Nothing, Tyme!
And yet the best things are
Nothing
without that.
Honors, Pleasures, Possessions
, presented to us, out of time, in our decrepit, and distasted, and unapprehensive
Age
, loose their
Office
, and loose their
Name;
They are not
Honors
to us, that shall never appeare, nor come abroad into the Eyes of the people, to receive
Honor
, from them who give it: Nor
pleasures
to us, who have lost our sense to taste them; nor
possessions
to us, who are departing from the possession of them.
Youth is their Criticall Day;
that
Judges
them, that
Denominates
them, that
inanimates
, and
informes
them, and makes them
Honors
, and
Pleasures
, and
Possessions;
and when they come in an unapprehensive
Age
, they come as a
Cordial
when the bell rings out, as a
Pardon
, when the Head is off. We rejoyce in the Comfort of
fire
, but does any man cleave to it at
Midsomer;
Wee are glad of the freshnesse, and coolenes of a
Vault
, but does any man keepe his
Christmas
there; or are the pleasures of the
Spring
acceptable in
Autumne?
If happinesse be in the
season
, or in the
Clymate
, how much happier then are
Birdes
than
Men
, who can change the
Climate
, and accompanies and enjoy the same season ever.

XV. MEDITATION

NATURALL men have conceived a twofold use of
sleepe;
That it is a
refreshing
of the body in this life; That it is a
preparing
of the soule for the next; That it is a
feast
, and it is the
grace
at that
feast;
That it is our
recreation
, and cheeres us, and it is our
Catechisme
and instructs us; wee lie downe in a hope, that wee shall rise the stronger; and we lie downe in a knowledge, that wee may rise no more.
Sleepe
is an
Opiate
which gives us rest, but such an
Opiate
, as perchance, being under it, we shall wake no more. But though naturall men, who have induced secondary and figurative considerations, have found out this second, this
emblematicall
use of
sleepe
, that it should be a
representation of death, God
, who wrought and perfected his worke, before
Nature
began, (for
Nature
was but his
Apprentice
, to learne in the first
seven daies
, and now is his
foreman
, and works next under him)
God
, I say, intended
sleepe
onely for the
refreshing
of man by bodily rest, and not for a
figure of death
, for he intended not death it
selfe
then. But
Man
having induced
death
upon himselfe,
God
hath taken
Mans Creature,
death
, into his hand, and mended it; and whereas it hath in itselfe a fearefull forme and aspect, so that Man is afraid of his own
Creature, God
presents it to him, in a
familiar
, in an
assiduous
, in an
agreeable
and
acceptable
forme, in
sleepe
, that so when hee awakes from
sleepe
, and saies to himselfe, shall I bee no otherwise when I am dead, than I was even now, when I was asleep, hee may bee ashamed of his waking
dreames
, and of his
Melancholique
fancying out a horrid and an affrightfull figure of that
death
which is so like sleepe. As then wee need
sleepe
to live out our
threescore and ten yeeres
, so we need
death
, to live that life which we cannot
out-live
. And as
death
being our
enemie
, God allowes us to defend ourselves against it (for wee
victuall
ourselves against death,
twice
every day, as often as we
eat
) so
God
having so sweetned
death
unto us as hee hath in
sleepe
, wee put ourselves into our
enemies
hands
once
every day; so farre, as
sleepe
is
death;
and sleepe is as much death, as
meat
is
life
. This then is the
misery
of my
sicknesse
, That death as it is produced from mee, and is mine owne
Creature
, is now before mine
Eyes
, but in that forme, in which
God
hath mollified it to us, and made it acceptable, in
sleepe
, I cannot see it: how many
prisoners
, who have even hollowed themselves their
graves
upon that
Earth
, on which they have lien long under heavie fetters, yet at this
houre
are
asleepe
, though they bee yet working upon their owne
graves
by their owne
waight!
Hee that hath seene his
friend
die to day, or knowes hee shall see it to
morrow
, yet will sinke into a sleepe betweene. I cannot; and oh, if I be entring now into
Eternitie
, where there shall bee no more distinction of
houres
, why is it al my businesse now
to tell Clocks?
why is none of the heavinesse of my
heart
, dispensed into mine
Eye-lids
, that they might fall as my heart doth? And why, since I have lost my delight in all objects, cannot I discontinue the facultie of seeing them, by closing mine
eyes
in
sleepe?
But why rather being entring into that presence, where I shall wake continually and never sleepe more, doe I not interpret MY continuall waking here, to bee a
parasceve
, and a
preparation
to that?

XVI. MEDITATION

WE have a
Convenient Author
, who writ a
Discourse of Bells
, when hee was prisoner in
Turky
. How would hee have enlarged himselfe if he had beene my
fellow-prisoner
in this
sicke bed
, so neere to that
Steeple
, which never ceases, no more than the
harmony of the spheres
, but is more heard. When the
Turkes
took
Constantinople
, they melted the
Bells
into
Ordnance;
I have heard both
Bells
and
Ordnance
, but never been so much affected with those, as with these
Bells
. I have
lien
near a
Steeple
, in which there are said to be more than
thirty Bels;
And neere another, where there is one so bigge, as that the
Clapper
is said to weigh more than
six hundred pound
, yet never so affected as here. Here the
Bells
can scarse solemnise the funerall of any person, but that I knew him, or knew that he was my
Neighbour:
we dwelt in houses neere to one another before, but now hee is gone into that house, into which I must follow him. There is a way of correcting the
Children
of great persons, that other
Children
are corrected in their
behalfe
, and in their
names
, and this workes upon them, who indeed had more deserved it. And when these
Bells
tell me, that now one, and now another is buried, must not I acknowledge, that they have the
correction
due to me, and paid the
debt
that I owe? There is a story of a
Bell
in a
Monastery
which, when any of the house was sicke to death, rung alwaies
voluntarily
, and they knew the inevitablenesse of the danger by that. It rung once, when no man was sick; but the next day one of the house, fell from the
steeple
, and died, and the
Bell
held the reputation of a
Prophet
still. If these
Bells
that warne to a
Funerall
now, were appropriated to none, may not I, by the houre of the
Funerall
, supply? How many men that stand at an
execution
, if they would aske, for what dies that man, should heare their owne faults condemned, and see themselves executed, by
Atturney?
We scarce heare of any man
preferred
, but wee thinke of our selves, that wee might very well have beene that
Man;
Why might not I have beene that
Man
, that is carried to his grave now? Could I fit my selfe, to
stand
, or sit in any mans
place
, and not to lie in any mans
grave?
I may lacke much of the
good parts
of the meanest, but I lacke nothing of the
mortality
of the weakest; They may have acquired better
abilities
than I, but I was borne to as many
infirmities
as they. To be an
Incumbent
by lying down in a
grave
, to be a
Doctor
by teaching
Mortification
by
Example
, by
dying
, though I may have
seniors
, others may be
elder
than I, yet I have proceeded apace in a good
University
, and gone a great way in a little time, by the furtherance of a vehement
Fever;
and whomsoever these
Bells
bring to the ground to day, if hee and I had beene compared yesterday, perchance I should have been thought likelier to come to this preferment, then, than he.
God
hath kept the power of
death
in his owne hands, lest any man should
bribe death
. If man knew the
gaine
of death
, the
ease of death
, he would solicite, he would provoke
death
to assist him, by any hand, which he might use. But as when men see many of their owne professions preferd, it ministers a hope that that may light upon them; so when these hourely
Bells
tell me of so many
funerals
of men like me, it presents, if not a
desire
that it may, yet a
comfort
whensoever mine shall come.

XVII. MEDITATION

NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS.

Now this bell tolling softly for another,
says to me, Thou must die.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him.  And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.  The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all.  When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingraffed into that body, whereof I am a member.  And when she buries a man, that action concerns me; 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; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another; 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: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.