| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | March 31 | | Donne | | By Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) |
| | | | Dr. John Donne was an English poet and divine. He was appointed Dean of St. Paul’s by James I. He died on March 31, 1631. |
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BRIEF was the reign of pure poetic truth; | |
| A race of thinkers next, with rhymes uncouth, | |
| And fancies fashioned in laborious brains, | |
| Made verses heavy as o’erloaded wains. | |
| Love was their theme, but love that dwelt in stones, | 5 |
| Or charmed the stars in their concentric zones; | |
| Love that did erst the nuptial rites conclude | |
| ’Twixt immaterial form and matter rude; | |
| Love that was riddled, sphered, transacted, spelt, | |
| Sublimed, projected, everything but felt. | 10 |
| Or if in age, in orders, or the cholic, | |
| They damned all loving as a heathen frolic; | |
| They changed their topic, but in style the same, | |
| Adored their maker as they wooed their dame. | |
| Thus DONNE, not first, but greatest of the line, | 15 |
| Of stubborn thoughts a garland thought to twine; | |
| To his fair Maid brought cabalistic posies, | |
| And sung quaint ditties of metempsychosis; | |
| “Twists iron pokers into true love-knots,” | |
| Coining hard words, not found in polyglots. | 20 | | |
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