A Burnt Ship

John Donne (1572–1631) · Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death · Epigrams · 1633

Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap’d forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes’ ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1633). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-donne_poetry, epigrams.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L6.

Cite this poem

John Donne (1572–1631). “A Burnt Ship.” First published in Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1633). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-donne/a-burnt-ship/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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