Page:The Poems of John Donne - 1896 - Volume 1.djvu/45

Rh Donne was born in 1573, so that if we take Walton’s “twentieth year” and Jonson’s ‘‘twenty-five years” literally, we get 1593 or 1598 as the date before which most of his secular poetry was written. It will be seen, however, from the few poems which I have been able to give a date to in the notes, that no inconsiderable portion even of this division of his work belongs to periods later than 1600. I have not, however, been able to find that any of it, with the exception of one or two Funeral Elegies which can barely be called secular, is subsequent to his ordination in 1615. On the other hand, the ascertained dates of the sacred poetry entirely confirm the statement that this was written during the latter part of his life, for these range from 1607 to 1631. Considering the whole matter, I have come to the following probable conclusion. The Satires and the Love-Poems (Songs and Sonnets and Elegies) belong to the beginning of his life. But even here, I think, it is possible to detect an earlier stratum of cynicism and ethical laxity, and a later stratum marked by intenser and more constant emotions, and by a growing spirituality of thought. I see no reason why we should not date the change from the years which separated his first acquaintance with Anne More (1596?) from his marriage with her in 1601. The Divine Poems, as has been said, come last. The Verse Letters, Funeral Elegies and Epithalamia, both in date and in subject-matter, bridge the gulf between the two. Some of the Verse Letters, such as the Storm and the Calm, belong to the earlier period, but a good many of them belong to 1610 or thereabouts, and in many ways they show Donne’s poetic powers at their ripest.

The first edition of the Poems was entered thus upon the Stationers’ Registers (Arber, vol. iv.)—