To say that John Donne "had a way with words" would be like saying Michael Jordan was a "pretty good

[Atticus]

basketball player.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

[Polly Hennessey]

1. One of my favorites.

“Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.”

The Bait, stanza 1

[LuvLoogie]

2. I read this one to close my words at my father's funeral

I said

"And now, if my cadence will allow,
a sonnet by John Donne..."

At the round earth's imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these, my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood.

[highplainsdem]

3. Great writing ability atop the high plateau of Elizabethan English.

[Harker]

4. I can think of a few clods who might best be washed away by the sea. n/t

[malthaussen]

5. If every man's loss diminishes me, it must follow...

... that every new birth increases me. In my lifetime, world population has more than doubled... so I'm now twice the man I used to be.

-- Mal

[NNadir]

6. One of the most beautiful passages in the English language, to be sure. n/t.