The Complete Poems

Born in 1572 in London England, John Donne is one of the most important and influential of all English poets. The child of Catholic parents at a time when Catholicism was illegal in England, Donne spent much of his life wrestling with his beliefs and trying to find his place in the world. While now regarded as one of the most famous English metaphysical poets and one of exceptional skill and brilliance, Donne published very little poetry during his own lifetime and was not a professional writer. While he inherited riches from his family, he wasted much of his fortune on mistresses and travel and struggled for his adult life to provide for his large family. Despite these obstacles, he wrote a prodigious amount of poetry and prose, much for wealthy patrons. Donne was a master of wit and irony with an unparalleled ability to create metaphors and combine two vastly different ideas or images into one. His vast legacy of poems on life, love, death, and religion, contain some of the most famous and unforgettable lines ever written in English. In this volume you will find a complete collection of John Donne’s poetical works.