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…
31 Mar 1631: d. John Donne, #poet & cleric in the deanery of St Paul’s London #otd having earlier posed in his own shroud (BM/NPG)
A striking man in his day. Among other things. pic.twitter.com/v1mX30Fy6N
— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) March 31, 2023