Holy Sonnet XII
by John Donne
Pseudo-Martyr (1610), Ignatius His Conclave (1611), An Anatomy of the World (1611), Progress of the Soul (1612), Anniversary (1612). His sermons were published posthumously in three volumes, LXXX Sermons (1640), Fifty Sermons (1649), XXVI Sermons (1660), all edited by his son John. See also H.J.C. Grierson's 1912 edition of his work.
Holy Sonnet XII
by John Donne
|
|
Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily,
Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe is me, and worse than you,
You have not sinned, nor need be timorous.
But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue,
But their Creator, whom sin nor nature tied,
For us, His creatures, and His foes, hath died.
|
