"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
This is an extract from John Donne's Meditation XVII. This was one of a series of meditations, published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Note that they're in prose, not verse. Meditation XVII contains 715 words in total, 81 of which are included in the above extract (which is paragraph 3 of 4). I mention this just to give an idea of the length of the meditations.
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