Public-domain source text

To <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Rowland Woodward

by John Donne

From Standard Ebooks · standardebooks/john-donne_poetry

Kindly I Envy Thy Song’s Perfection
Kindly I envy thy song’s perfection Built of all th’ elements as our bodies are: That Little of earth that is in it, is a fair Delicious garden where all sweets are sown. In it is cherishing fire which dries in me Grief which did drown me: and half quenched by it Are satiric fires which urged me to have writ In scorn of all: for now I admire thee. And as air doth fulfil the hollowness Of rotten walls; so it mine emptiness, Where tossed and moved it did beget this sound Which as a lame echo of thine doth rebound Oh, I was dead; but since thy song new life did give, I recreated even by thy creature live.

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