John Donne

“ Scarce any prison so close that affords not the prisoner two or three steps. The anchorites, that barked themselves up in hollow trees, and immured themselves in hollow walls; that perverse man, that barrelled himself in a tub; all could stand or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sick bed is a grave, and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his own epitaph. Every night's bed is a type of the grave. At night we tell our servants at what hour we will rise ”

“ As thou hast made this bed thine altar, make me thy sacrifice; and as thou makest thy Son Christ Jesus the priest, so make me his deacon, to minister to him in a cheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. I come unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, I come to thee, by embracing thy coming to me, I come in the confidence, and in the application of thy servant David's promise, that thou wilt make all my bed in my sickness [15] : all my bed ”

“ In the grave no man shall praise thee; in the door of the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee: thou hast not opened my lips, that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that my mouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes hold of me, that when 1 have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway [12] ”

“ Here the head lies as low as the foot; the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon; and that hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own, if he might have it for lifting up that hand. Strange fetters to the feet, strange manacles to the hands, when the feet and hands are bound so much the faster, by how much the cords are slacker; so much the less able to do their offices, by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser. ”

“ The Patient takes his Bed.
III. MEDITATION.
WE attribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above other moving creatures, that he is not, as others, groveling, but of an erect, of an upright form, naturally built and disposed to the contemplation of heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompenses that soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many feet higher towards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is no unfit object, no unfit contemplation for man; for thither he must come, but because man is not to stay there, as other creatures are ”