Hymn to God: Donne

Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness

by John Donne

Since I am coming to that Holy room,

Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,

I shall be made Thy music; as I come

I tune the instrument here at the door,

And what I must do then, think here before;

Whilst my physicians by their love 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;

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.

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.

So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;

By these His thorns, give me His other crown;

And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word,

Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,

"Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down."