Notes On Pronunciation: Since this is an international list, and not all listmembers are familiar with the traditional conventions of English poetry, a few explanations may be useful. All of the poems that follow are written in iambic pentameter. That is, a line normally has ten syllables, with five stresses, which normally fall on the even-numbered syllables, although their position may vary (in particular, the stress on the second syllable is often transferred to the first). A sonnet has fourteen lines: an octet of eight lines, followed by a sestet of six. In some of these poems, Donne uses a convention that is a requirement of classical Latin poetry: the elision. If a word ends in a vowel (or diphthong) and the next word begins with one, the first vowel is omitted and the number of syllables in the line reduced by one. As an aid to the reader, I have inserted an "=" sign at each elision. In modern English the "e" in the ending "-ed" of a verb is usually silent. Sometimes in older English it is sounded, creating an extra syllable. When this happens, I have capitalized the "-Ed".

Sonnet XIV

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow= me and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like a usurped town to= another due,

Labor to= admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy= in me, me should defend, But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly= I love you,= and would be lovED fain,

Divorce me,= untie or break that knot again; Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you= enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Sonnet X

Death, be not proud, though some have callED thee

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee do go-- Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!

Thou= art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And poppy= or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke, Why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

(Numbered footnotes below.)

Since I am coming to that holy room

I tune the instrument here at the door,

And what I must do then, think here before.(1)

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown

That this is my southwest discovery,(3)

Per Fretum Febris,(4) by these straits to die,(5)

I joy that in these straits I see my west;

In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,

So death doth touch the resurrection. (6)

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are

All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,(9)

Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.(10)

We think that Paradise, and Calvary,

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,

Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:

"Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

Notes: (1) That is: "Since I am on the verge of death, let me prepare my thoughts." (2) Cosmography is the study of the basic structure and constitution of the world. (3) "Southwest discovery" refers to the fact that from England one can reach the riches of the Orient by sailing southwest around South America through the Straits of Magellan, or northwest around North America through the Bering Straits, or southeast around Africa, or northeast around Norway and Siberia. One can also go east through the Straits of Gibraltar and then across land, either across the Isthmus of Suez and then again by sea to India or else by the Silk Road to China along the route of Marco Polo. Donne here speaks of the "southwest discovery," the route taken by the explorer Magellan. (4) "Per fretum febris," by the wearing away of a fever (Latin). The explorer Magellan, who made the "southwest discovery," died "per fretum febris" before he could complete his goal of sailing around the earth. Donne, at the time of this writing, is ill with a fever. (5) "Strait" means "narrow, constricted, or tight" (as in "strait-laced," referring to the extremely tight corsets that were once fashionable, and thence by analogy to someone considered to be inflexible in his behavior). It is not to be confused with "straight", meaning "not crooked". A strait is a narrow passage, a tight sqeeze, especially a narrow sea passage connecting two larger bodies of water, and bounded closely on either side by land. The word also refers, especially in the plural, to a situation of distress, deprivation, difficulty, perplexity, misfortune, or the like. (A man lost in the desert is said to be "in dire straits".) Hence Donne, playing on the double meaning of the word "strait," says that he is about to die of his present distress, meaning his fever and his illness. (6) On a flat map of the whole world the far east (the rightmost edge of the map) and the far west (the leftmost edge of the map) are places that touch on a globe or in the real world.

(7) "Anyan" is another name for the Bering Straits. (8) We place the stresses in this line as follows:

   "An-yan, and MA-gel-LAN, and GIB-ral-TAR".
(9) No matter what desirable and fabled country is my destiny, I