Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
    Cosmographers, and I[72] their map, who lie
  Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
    That this is my south-west discovery,
    Per fretum febris—­by these straits to die;—­

Here, in the midst of comparing himself to a map, and his physicians to cosmographers consulting the map, he changes without warning into a navigator whom they are trying to follow upon the map as he passes through certain straits—­namely, those of the fever—­towards his south-west discovery, Death.  Grotesque as this is, the absurdity deepens in the end of the next stanza by a return to the former idea.  He is alternately a map and a man sailing on the map of himself.  But the first half of the stanza is lovely:  my reader must remember that the region of the West was at that time the Land of Promise to England.

  I joy that in these straits I see my West;
    For though those currents yield return to none,
  What shall my West hurt me?  As west and east
    In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
    So death doth touch the resurrection.

It is hardly worth while, except for the strangeness of the phenomenon, to spend any time in elucidating this.  Once more a map, he is that of the two hemispheres, in which the east of the one touches the west of the other.  Could anything be much more unmusical than the line, “In all flat maps (and I am one) are one”?  But the next stanza is worse.

  Is the Pacific sea my home?  Or are
    The eastern riches?  Is Jerusalem? 
  Anvan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? 
    All straits, and none but straits are ways to them,
    Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem.

The meaning of the stanza is this:  there is no earthly home:  all these places are only straits that lead home, just as they themselves cannot be reached but through straits.

Let my reader now forget all but the first stanza, and take it along with the following, the last two: 

  We think that Paradise and Calvary,
    Christ’s cross and Adam’s tree, stood in one place: 
  Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
    As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,
    May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.

  So, in his purple wrapped, receive me, Lord;
    By these his thorns give me his other crown;
  And as to others’ souls I preached thy word,
    Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: 
    Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down.

Surely these are very fine, especially the middle verse of the former and the first verse of the latter stanza.  The three stanzas together make us lovingly regret that Dr. Donne should have ridden his Pegasus over quarry and housetop, instead of teaching him his paces.