John Donne - The Storm

Lyrics

Thou which art I, ('tis nothing to be so) Thou which art still thyself, by these shalt know Part of our passage; and, a hand, or eye By Hilliard drawn, is worth an history By a worse painter made; and (without pride) When by thy judgement they are dignified My lines are such: 'tis the pre-eminence Of friendship only to impute excellence England to whom we owe, what we be, and have Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave (For, Fate's, or Fortune's drifts none can soothsay Honour and misery havе one face and way) From out her prеgnant entrails sighed a wind Which at th' air's middle marble room did find Such strong resistance, that itself it threw Downward again; and so when it did view How in the port, our fleet dear time did leese Withering like prisoners, which lie but for fees Mildly it kissed our sails, and, fresh and sweet As to a stomach starved, whose insides meet Meat comes, it came; and swole our sails, when we So joyed, as Sara her swelling joyed to see But 'twas but so kind, as our countrymen Which bring friends one day's way, and leave them then Then like two mighty kings, which dwelling far Asunder, meet against a third to war The south and west winds joined, and, as they blew Waves like a rolling trench before them threw Sooner than you read this line, did the gale Like shot, not feared till felt, our sails assail; And what at first was called a gust, the same Hath now a storm's, anon a tempest's name Jonas, I pity thee, and curse those men Who when the storm raged most, did wake thee then; Sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfil All offices of death, except to kill But when I waked, I saw, that I saw not I, and the sun, which should teach me had forgot East, west, day, night, and I could only say If the world had lasted, now it had been day Thousands our noises were, yet we 'mongst all Could none by his right name, but thunder call: Lightning was all our light, and it rained more Than if the sun had drunk the sea before Some coffined in their cabins lie, equally Grieved that they are not dead, and yet must die And as sin-burdened souls from graves will creep At the last day, some forth their cabins peep: And tremblingly ask what news, and do hear so Like jealous husbands, what they would not know Some sitting on the hatches, would seem there With hideous gazing to fear away fear Then note they the ship's sicknesses, the mast Shaked with this ague, and the hold and waist With a salt dropsy clogged, and all our tacklings Snapping, like too high stretched treble strings And from our tottered sails, rags drop down so As from one hanged in chains, a year ago Even our ordnance placed for our defence Strive to break loose, and 'scape away from thence Pumping hath tired our men, and what's the gain? Seas into seas thrown, we suck in again; Hearing hath deafed our sailors; and if they Knew how to hear, there's none knows what to say Compared to these storms, death is but a qualm Hell somewhat lightsome, and the Bermuda calm Darkness, light's elder brother, his birth-right Claims o'er this world, and to heaven hath chased light All things are one, and that one none can be Since all forms, uniform deformity Doth cover, so that we, except God say Another Fiat , shall have no more day So violent, yet long these furies be That though thine absence starve me, I wish not thee