Poem by John Donne

Holy Sonnet 12. Why are we by all creatures waited on?

Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simpler and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why dost thou, bull and boar, so sillily
Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe's me, and worse than you;
You have not sinn'd, nor need be timorous.
But wonder at a greater, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue;
But their Creator, whom sin, nor nature tied,
For us, His creatures, and His foes, hath died.

1. Holy Sonnet 18. Show me, dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear
2. Holy Sonnet 15. Wilt thou love God as he thee? then digest
3. Holy Sonnet 5. I am a little world made cunningly
4. Holy Sonnet 9. If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
5. Holy Sonnet 6. This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint

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