Thursday, January 24, 2008

Meditations on Donne

"Send Not To Know for Whom the Bell Tolls..."

It tolls for me?
Am i so dead as that
That a stranger shake his head
At the shortness of the tolling bells'
What was life that meant so little
Little use for weeping now --
Tears never paid for anything,
Anything worth anything, anyway.

It tolls for me?
And do those tolling bells' carry --
the soul to heights unreached
Or merely show its sunken depth
Like soundings to the ocean floor?
Carry far, carry on, carry me?
To disipate like sound on wind
To nothingness and forgotten reality?

It tolls for me? --

It tolls for you.
It tolls for nothing.

1 comment:

~im just only me~ said...

I suppose this needs a bit of explanation... Obviously, it has to do with Donne, but also, when i was a senior in highschool, we were standing in a small square in France waiting for admittance into a cloister, when we heard the bell from the attached chapel tolling. We looked over to see a funeral taking place and proceeded to count the number of times the bell tolled. It stopped at 36. I was somewhat stunned because i expected it to be an old man or something I guess... Death always leads to a reflection on life i suppose...