These poems speak, as [Philip] Yancey says, to “the guilt and fear and helpless faith that marked [Donne’s] darkest days.” They also answer one of the toughest questions we can face, “In the midst of plague times, how can we give thanks?”
Here are the three poems excerpted by Yancey, with his clarifying revisions of Donne’s eighteenth-century language…
The Church of England today commemorates John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 https://t.co/eOoA6wnyxv
Portrait of John Donne by Unknown English artist, c.1595. © National Portrait Gallery, London, CC-BY-NC-ND pic.twitter.com/1MSYaKCls3
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 31, 2022