Many poems he deemed too scandalous; others seemingly too personal. He had died in 1631, aged 59, a poet of vehement love and troubled faith. The poems are no less astonishing now than they were then.

Having recently discovered Donne’s sermon against the abomination of torture, from Easter 1625, I went back to one of his poems, “Love’s Exchange.” The exact date of this work is uncertain, though ...

Bookshelf ‘Super-Infinite’ Review: John Donne, Love Poet Divine His verse shockingly linked the sacred and the sensual—and his prose strove to make sense of life and death.

This sonnet from English poet John Donne (1571–1631) isn’t a conventional love poem but rather a love poem dedicated to God. On the surface, the narrator struggles with his faith and beseeches ...

And among his contemporaries, nobody oscillated more madly than John Donne. ... Donne’s love poetry is extreme: Bodies melt, souls commingle, genders elide, death is an atom away.

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls, to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, The breath goes now, and some say, no: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear ...

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead. Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered, swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea ...

He had died in 1631, aged 59, a poet of vehement love and troubled faith. In 1633, ... an especially apt location for John Donne's poems to appear. It was a collection, ...