Paraphrase of Donne's "Hymn to Christ" - from age 19

If I set forth upon the waters in any ragged ship,
I will take it for the voice-laden image of your ark;
Whatever draining ocean may pull me into its mouth,
I will hear in its rush the living letters from which your flowing blood appears;
Though you choose to drape your countenance in angry billows,
My knowledge will remain set on your eyes alive behind that dark veil,
Which, though they roll and rove like the waves, will never drown me from spite.

I set this isle, my lifeworld, on your altar
With all my lovers and beloveds and friends;
When I have spilled the watery expanse of our poured-out lives between us all,
Establish your own salty gulf between yourself and my transgression.
For just as tree-sap ebbs in thick streams toward the buried tubers
To seek refuge from a dying world, I now in the winter of my life also go under
That I may dwell in the everlasting root of your love.

Neither you yourself nor the worship of you will constrain
The free passions of a spirit in symphonic concord,
But you do jealously desire to have that one’s love for yourself;
And as you are zealous for my love, my God, so now I overflow with zeal for yours.
You do not love, if you will not liberate my spirit from its wandering loves;
For the person who gives freedom takes it.
My soul exclaims, Oh! You do not love me if you sigh not for my other loves.

Place then the signet of your love on the divorce papers
That set me apart from all on whom the trickles of my weak affection fell;
Wed all my old loves who have dissipated with my young years,
Take unto yourself my worthless lovers, those named notoriety, intellect, and ambition.
In dim sanctuaries it is most true to pray:
To see you alone, my God, I pass out of vision and lose my eyes.
And to depart from the tempests of time, I choose for my spirit an eternal dark night.