No Man is an Island by John Donne

I have not abandoned this blog. I guess I just needed a break. There will be a review up this weekend for Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It was a short but powerful exploration of human suffering. In the meantime, I will post a famous passage from John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (Meditation 17). I definitely place Donne up there with Christina Rossetti as far as devotional (loosely defined) poetry is concerned.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each 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 thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.