Reply to John Donne

Archipelago

Every man is an island entire
of itself. Each man is a rock in the sea
even as a continent is a larger rock.

If a clod or a promontory or a manor
or the house of a friend is washed away
by the waves then Europe may be less

but Europe is less than an island. A line
fluctuating on a hospital chart. I repeat:
Every man is an island. The death of a

Cruel tyrant will not diminish the victim
as you postulate. And so the wise man
sends to know for whom the bell tolls.