Note 39 — POEMS

It is very unlikely that Donne had in his possession when he died manuscript copies of his early poems. (1) Walton makes no mention of them when enumerating the works which Donne left behind in manuscript, including 'six score sermons all written with his own hand; also an exact and laborious treatise concerning self-murder, called Biathanatos', as well as elaborate notes on authors and events. (2) In 1614, when Donne thought of publishing his poems, he found it necessary to beg for copies from his friends: 'By this occasion I am made a Rhapsoder of mine own rags, and that cost me more diligence to seek them, then it did to make them. This made me aske to borrow that old book of you.' To Sir H. G., Vigilia St. Tho. 1614. (3) Jonson and Walton both tell us that Donne, after taking Orders, would have been glad to destroy his early poems. The sincerity of this wish has been doubted because of what he says in a letter regarding Biathanatos: 'I only forbid it the press and the fire.' But Biathanatos is a very different matter from the poems. It is a grave and devout, if daring, treatise in casuistry. No one can enter into Donne's mind from 1617 onwards, as ascetic devotion became a more and more sincere and consuming passion, and believe that he kept copies of the early poems or paradoxes, prepared for the press like his sermons or devotions.