Hym To God, My God In My Sickness Poem by John Donne

Hym To God, My God In My Sickness

Rating: 2.8


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,
[lang l]Per fretum febris[lang e], by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;
For, though their 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.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

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.'

Monday, May 14, 2001
Topic(s) of this poem: religion
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Sylvia Frances Chan 12 May 2023

FOUR: TOP Marks for the great Poet John Donne. I can feel his sufferings, his deep pains in this poem, devotional poem for God, surely it brought great relief to him. Very sad poem

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Sylvia Frances Chan 12 May 2023

THREE: Very sad poem, a great devotion to God addressed in this poem, writing a poem about something that was very bothering him would certainly have brought relief to his deep suffering, a true devotion to God

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Sylvia Frances Chan 12 May 2023

TWO: from some serious illness, in his time you had not yet the right medicine for a serious infectious disease. People in John Donne's time didn't really heal and in a very short time they die. This is how my mind goes when reading this poem.

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Sylvia Frances Chan 12 May 2023

ONE: clearly wrote a poem at a time when the poet was near death, or was in a very ill period and that he made this poem as a supplication to God because he thought he was about to die

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John Donne

John Donne

London, England
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