The seventeenth century figure John Donne is one of the best-known English poets of the seventeenth century, often regarded as the most prominent of the “metaphysical poets.” Known for a variety of poems, including his Holy Sonnets, Donne was for the last decades of his life a devout Anglican priest and pastor, including various parish ministries and then Dean of St Paul’s cathedral in London. I have found him a steady and valued companion since first reading him when I was a sophomore in high school, in English Literature class, and find myself often returning to his poetry in the Spring.
For today I would just like to share this lovely section from Part V of The Litanie, first published in 1633, in which he gives Thanksgiving for Mary’s role in the scheme of redemption, utilising seamlessly many images and themes from the Tradition:
For that fair blessed Mother-maid,
Whose flesh redeemed us; That she-Cherubin,
Which unlock’d Paradise, and made
One claim for Innocence, and disseiz’d sin,
Whose womb was a strange heav’n, for there
God cloath’d Himself, and grew,
Our zealous thanks we pour. As her deeds were
Our helps, so are her prayers; nor can she sue
In vain, who hath such titles unto you.
Festina Lente 