Explore "The Dissolution" by John Donne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
She's dead; and all which die / To their first elements resolve; / And we were mutual elements to us, / And made of one another. / My body then doth hers involve, / And those things whereof I consist hereby / In me abundant grow, and burdenous, / And nourish not, but smother. / My fire of passion, sighs of air, / Water of tears, and earthy sad despair, / Which my materials be, / But near worn out by love's security, / She, to my loss, doth by her death repair. / And I might live long wretched so, / But that my fire doth with my fuel grow. / Now, as those active kings / Whose foreign conquest treasure brings, / Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break, / This-which I am amazed that I can speak- / This death, hath with my store / My use increased. / And so my soul, more earnestly released, / Will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before / A later bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.