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…
25 Nov 1625: exiled in #Chelsea due to plague, John Donne reports #otd he has written out 80 of his sermons (NPG) #lockdown pic.twitter.com/cob4YrgVSo
— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) November 25, 2025