My Favorite John Donne (prolly because we sang it in high school...an amazing work, the music was perfect...can't remember the composer...)
utl2.library.utoronto.ca
Holy Sonnet VII
1 At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
2 Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
3 From death, you numberless infinities
4 Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go;
5 All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
6 All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
7 Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes
8 Shall behold God and never taste death's woe.
9 But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
10 For if above all these my sins abound,
11 'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace
12 When we are there; here on this lowly ground
13 Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
14 As if thou hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood.
It makes more sense (to me) if you stop for a heart beat or two at the end of line 8 before going on to line 9, and again at the semi colon in line 12 (which I would have made a period...I'm a much better editor than I am a writer, sigh).
When we performed the piece for the first time in public it was with several other high school choirs -- must have been at least 500 ro 600 of us. It was electrifying.
The link above is a great resource for locating quotations by first line, etc.
PCM
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