1840

There is a gem that's brighter far
Than purest gold or diamond star
Shining in darkness as in light
Unharmed by storms and knows no blight.

Tho error o'er it casts its gloom
And persecutions round it throng
All be vanquished all must die
While truth victorious soars on high.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refined,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

~John Donne