Meditation 1 – John Donne
by richibi
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to my utter embarrassment, my
profound dismay, I attributed in
profound dismay, I attributed in
my last title John Donne‘s “No
inadvertently, a somewhat later
though nearly contemporary
poet of Donne‘s, equally as
noteworthy, thereby accounting,
maybe, for my confusion, my
lapse, my infelicity, however still
unforgivable
once I mistook Schubert for
Beethoven, and, however similar
these might become in their
euphoric musical explorations
despite their obvious rhythmic
differences, never a sufficient
excuse, though, for that flagrant
flaw – I still blush at the memory
of that faux pas, among French
intellectuals no less, the worst,
the least forgiving
John Donne, I’ve found since, is
not only noteworthy for his ribald
poems, the ones we studied mostly
at school, but his “Devotions upon
Emergent Occasions“, from which
“No man is an island” is but one
inspirational bit, is replete with
other gems
he’d composed them after having
survived a brush with death, they
are wise, and worth individually
considering for their spiritual
illumination, their metaphysical
light, their sage and sober
guidance
here’s Meditation 1, or
“Variable, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz’d with a sodaine change, and alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long and regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrowes all, demolishes all; a Sicknes unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiositie; nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroyes us in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God, who as hee is immortall himselfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortalitie into us, which we might have blowen into a flame, but blew it out, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selves by hearkning after false riches, and infatuated our selves by hearkning after false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onely die, but die upon the Rack, die by the torment of sicknesse; nor that onely, but are preafflicted, super-afflicted with these jelousies and suspitions, and apprehensions of Sicknes, before we can cal it a sicknes; we are not sure we are ill; one hand askes the other by the pulse, and our eye asks our urine, how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoy death, because wee die in this torment of sicknes; we art tormented with sicknes, and cannot stay till the torment come, but preapprehensions and presages, prophecy those torments, which induce that death before either come; and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickned in the sicknes it selfe, and borne in death, which beares date from these first changes. Is this the honour which Man hath by being a litle world, That he hath these earthquakes in him selfe, sodaine shakings; these lightnings, sodaine flashes; these thunders, sodaine noises; these Eclypses, sodain offuscations, and darknings of his senses; these Blazing stars, sodaine fiery exhalations; these Rivers of blood, sodaine red waters? Is he a world to himselfe onely therefore, that he hath inough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himselfe, but to presage that execution upon himselfe; to assist the sicknes, to antidate the sicknes, to make the sicknes the more irremediable, by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coales, so to wrap a hote fever in cold Melancholy, least the fever alone should not destroy fast enough, without this contribution nor perfit the work (which is destruction) except we joynd an artificiall sicknes, of our owne melancholy, to our natural, our unnaturall fever. O perplex’d discomposition, O ridling distemper, O miserable condition of Man!”
in other words, carpe diem, seize
the day, don’t worry, be happy,
something too many of us learn
too late
Richard
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