Uricon, and on...
[home] [classic] [simon poetry] [simon prose] [pat] [history] [groups/links\competitions]
Click Here for Books / Recordings from Amazon.co.uk re. John Donne
John Donne
XVII. Meditation (For Whom The Bell Tolls / No Man Is An Island)
PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he
knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than
I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to
toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all
her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that
action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my
head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she
buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one
volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but
translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God
employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by
sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation,
and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where
every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a
sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so
this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by
this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and
dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders
should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they
should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of
this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by
rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose
indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it
intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is
united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes
off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell
which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is
passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as
well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine
own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as
though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from
the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an
excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any
man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and
ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in
bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his
treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the
nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer
and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to
death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of
no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and
applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take
mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my
God, who is our only security.