A Hymn to the Saints, and to Marquis Hamilton by John Donne

Whether that soul which now comes up to you Fill any former rank, or make a new; Whether it take a name named there before, Or be a name itself and order more Than was in heaven till now⁠—for may not he Be so, if every several angel be A kind alone? whatever order grow Greater by him in heaven, we do not so. One of your orders grows by his access, But, by his loss, grow all our orders less; The name of father, master, friend, the name Of subject and of prince, in one is lame; Fair mirth is damp’d, and conversation black, The Household widow’d, and the Garter slack; The Chapel wants an ear, Council a tongue; Story, a theme; and Music lacks a song. Blest order that hath him, the loss of him Gangrened all orders here; all lost a limb. Never made body such haste to confess What a soul was; all former comeliness Fled, in a minute, when the soul was gone; And, having lost that beauty, would have none. So fell our monasteries, in an instant grown Not to less houses, but to heaps of stone; So sent his body that fair form it wore Unto the sphere of forms, and doth⁠—before His soul shall fill up his sepulchral stone⁠— Anticipate a resurrection. For, as in his fame now his soul is here, So, in the form thereof, his body’s there; And if, fair soul, not with first Innocents Thy station be, but with the Penitents, —And who shall dare to ask then, when I am Dyed scarlet in the blood of that pure Lamb, Whether that colour, which is scarlet then, Were black or white before in eyes of men?⁠— When thou rememb’rest what sins thou didst find Amongst those many friends now left behind, And seest such sinners, as they are, with thee Got thither by repentance, let it be Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them clean, Wish him a David, her a Magdalen.