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النشر الإلكتروني

DEVOTIONS UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS,

AND

SEVERAL STEPS IN MY SICKNESS.

DIGESTED INTO

I. MEDITATIONS, UPON OUR HUMAN CONDITION.

II. EXPOSTULATIONS, AND DEBATEMENTS WITH GOD. III. PRAYERS, UPON THE SEVERAL OCCASIONS, TO HIM.

TO

THE MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE, PRINCE CHARLES.

MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE,

I HAVE had three births; one, natural, when I came into the world; one, supernatural, when I entered into the ministry; and now, a preternatural birth, in returning to life, from this sickness. In my second birth, your Highness' royal father vouchsafed me his hand, not only to sustain me in it, but to lead me to it. In this last birth, I myself am born a father: this child of mine, this book, comes into the world, from me, and with me. And therefore, I presume (as I did the father, to the Father) to present the son to the Son; this image of my humiliation, to the lively image of his Majesty, your Highness. It might be enough, that God hath seen my devotions: but examples of good kings are commandments; and Hezekiah writ the meditations of his sickness, after his sickness. Besides, as I have lived to see, (not as a witness only, but as a partaker) the happiness of a part of your royal father's time, so shall I live (in my way) to see the happinesses of the times of your Highness too, if this child of mine, inanimated by your gracious acceptation, may so long preserve alive the memory of

Your Highness humblest and devotedest,

JOHN DONNE.

STATIONES, SIVE PERIODI IN MORBO,

AD QUAS REFERUNTUR MEDITATIONES

SEQUENTES.

(1) INSULTUS Morbi primus; (2) Post, actio læsa;
(3) Decubitus sequitur tandem; (4) Medicusque vocatur;
(5) Solus adest; (6) Metuit; (7) Socios sibi jungitur* instat;
(8) Et Rex ipse suum mittit; (9) Medicamina scribunt;
(10) Lentè et serpenti satagunt occurrere morbo.
(11) Nobilibusque trahunt, a cincto corde, venenum,
Succis, et gemmis; et quæ generosa, ministrant.
Ars, et Natura, instillant; (12) Spirante Columba,
Supposita pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores;
(13) Atque malum genium, numeroso stigmate, fassus,
Pellitur ad pectus, morbique suburbia, morbus:
(14) Idque notant criticis medici evenisse diebus.
(15) Interea insomnes noctes ego duco, diesque,
(16) Et properare meum, clamant è turre propinqua

Obstrepera campanæ, aliorum in funere, funus.
(17) Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris; (18) At inde,
Mortuus es; sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato.

(19) Oceano tandem emenso, aspicienda resurgit

Terra; vident justis, medici, jam cocta mederi

Se posse, indiciis; (20) Id agunt (21) Atque annuit ille,
Qui per eos clamat, linquas jam Lazare lectum ;

(22) Sit morbi fomes tibi cura; (23) Metusque relabi.

* I suppose jungier is meant, both here and again where the heading is repeated at Meditation VIL-ED.

DEVOTIONS.

I.

INSULTUS MORBI PRIMUS;

The first altercation, the first grudging of the sickness*.

I. MEDITATION.

VARIABLE, and therefore miserable condition of man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surprised with a sudden 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 air, and exercises, and we hew, and we polish every stone that goes to that building; and so our health is a long and a regular work; but in a minute a cannon batters all; overthrows all; diminishes all: a sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity; nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, destroys us in an instant. O miserable condition of man, which was not imprinted by God, who as he is immortal himself, had put a coal, a beam of immortality into us, which we might have blown into a flame, but blew it out by our first sin; we beggared ourselves by hearkening after false riches, and infatuated ourselves by hearkening after false knowledge. So that now, we do not only die, but die upon the rack, die by the torment of sickness; nor that only, but are pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these jealousies and suspicions, and apprehensions of sickness, before we can call it a sickness : we are not sure we are ill; one hand asks the other by the pulse, and our eye asks our own urine how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoy death, because we die in this torment of sickness; we are tormented with sickness, and cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehensions and presages, prophesy

* Old edition, "the first alteration,"-" the first gruding."

those torments, which induce that death before either come; and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickened in the sickness itself, and born in death, which bears date from these first changes. Is this the honour which man hath by being a little world, that he hath these earthquakes in himself, sudden shakings, these lightnings, sudden flashes; these thunders, sudden noises; these eclipses, sudden effuscations, and darkening of his senses; these blazing stars, sudden fiery exhalations; these rivers of blood, sudden red waters? Is he a world to himself only therefore, that he hath enough in himself, not only to destroy and execute himself, but to presage that execution upon himself; to assist the sickness, to antedate the sickness, to make the sickness the more irremediable by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coals, so to wrap a hot fever in cold melancholy, lest the fever alone should not destroy fast enough without this contribution, nor perfect the work (which is destruction) except we joined an artificial sickness of our own melancholy, to our natural, our unnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition! O riddling distemper! O miserable condition of man!

I. EXPOSTULATION.

If I were but mere dust and ashes I might speak unto the Lord, for the Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall recollect these ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel, upon which this vessel of clay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn, in which these ashes shall be preserved. I am the dust and the ashes of the temple of the Holy Ghost, and what marble is so precious? But I am more than dust and ashes, I am my best part, I am my soul. And being so, the breath of God, I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God, My God, my God, why is not my soul as sensible as my body? Why hath not my soul these apprehensions, these presages, these changes, those antedates, those jealousies, those suspicions of a sin, as well as my body of a sickness? Why is there not always a pulse in my soul, to beat at the approach of a temptation to sin? Why are there not always waters in mine eyes, to testify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of temptations, naturally, necessarily, all men

VOL. III.

2 K

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