Read "A Litany" by John Donne online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Father of Heaven, and Him, by whom / It, and us for it, and all else for us, / Thou madest and govern'st ever, come / And recreate me, now grown ruinous. / My heart is by dejection, clay, / And by self-murder, red. / From this red earth, O Father, purge away / All vicious tinctures, that new-fashioned / I may rise up from death, before I'm dead.
O Son of God, who, seeing two things, / Sin and Death, crept in, which were never made, / By bearing one, tried'st with what stings / The other could Thine heritage invade; / O be Thou nail'd unto my heart, / And crucified again; / Part not from it, though it from Thee would part, / But let it be by applying so Thy pain, / Drown'd in Thy blood, and in Thy passion slain.