We have a winding sheet in our mother's womb, which grows with us from our conception, and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet, for we come to seek a grave.
(...)
There in the womb, we are fitted for works of darkness, all the while deprived of light: and there in the womb we are taught cruelty, by being fed with blood, and may be damned, though we be never born.
(...)
Our birth dies in infancy, and our infancy dies in youth, and youth and the rest die in age, ald age also dies, and determines all. (...) Our youth is hungry and thirsty, after those sins, which our infancy knew not; and our age is sorry and angry, that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did.
Dias depois de ler este seu (sufocante) sermão Death's Duel em público, John Donne... morreu.
