Discovering poetry: John Donne, from deviant to Dean of St. Paul’s

Holy Sonnet 7, John Donne

At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go –
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death’s woe.
    But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space
For, if above all these my sins abound,
‘Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace When we are there.
Here, on this lowly ground, Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good
As if thou hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.

When John Donne transformed himself from womanising gallant to celebrated preacher he was able to take the poetic talent with which he’d celebrated anal sex (amongst other things) and use it to capture the psychological drama of faith.