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July 25, 2005
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions : Meditations XVII
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
No man is an island, entire of itself ;
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls ;
It tolls for thee.
-- John Donne (1573-1631)
Posted by daen at July 25, 2005 03:59 AM