Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE COMPUTATION by JOHN DONNE

Poet Analysis

First Line: FOR THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS, SINCE YESTERDAY
Last Line: AM, BY BEING DEAD, IMMORTAL. CAN GHOSTS DIE?
Subject(s): IMMORTALITY; TIME;
For the first twenty years, since yesterday,
I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away;
For forty more, I fed on favours past,
And forty on hopes -- that thou wouldst, they might, last.
Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
A thousand, I did neither think, nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;
Or in a thousand more forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life, but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal. Can ghosts die?





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