Page:The Poems of John Donne - 1896 - Volume 1.djvu/32

xxviii But to my fancy no division of Donne’s poems—the ‘Second Anniversary’ always excepted—shows him in his quiddity and essence as do the Lyrics. Some of these are to a certain extent doubtful. One of the very finest of the whole, ‘Absence, hear thou my protestation,’ with its unapproached fourth stanza, appeared first in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody unsigned. But all the best authorities agree (and for my part I would almost go to the stake on it) that the piece is Donne’s. In those which are undoubtedly genuine the peculiar quality of Donne flames through and perfumes the dusky air which is his native atmosphere in a way which, though I do not suppose that the French poet had ever heard of Donne, has always seemed to me the true antitype and fulfilment by anticipation of Baudelaire’s

Everybody knows the

of the late discovered skeleton, identifying the lover: everybody the perfect fancy and phrase of the exordium—