The Computation

For my first twenty years, since yesterday,
I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away,
For forty more I fed on favours past,
And forty on hopes, that thou wouldst they might last;
Tears drown’d one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
A thousand, I did neither think, nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;
Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

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, songs-and-sonnets.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L10.

Cite this poem

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

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