Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Worst wedding toast ever

John Donne in 1627, from the NYRB:
Where be all the splinters of that Bone,
which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the
Ayre ?
Where be all the Atoms of that flesh, which a Corrasive hath eat away,
or a Consumption hath breath'd,
and exhal'd away from our arms, and other Limbs ?
In what wrinkle, in what furrow, in what bowel of the earth,
ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt
a thousand years since ?
In what corner, in what ventricle of the sea, lies all the jelly of a Body drowned

in the generall flood ? What coherence, what sympathy, what dependence
maintaines any relation, any corre
spondence, between that arm that was lost in Europe,
and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia, scores of
yeers between ?
One humour of our dead body produces worms,
and those worms suck and exhaust all other
humour, and then all dies, and all dries,
and molders into dust, and that dust is blowen into the River, &

that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions,
and still, still God
knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies,
in what part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies
.

1 comment:

Matt said...

Ha, ha! You said, "bone."