Verse Epistle - On John Donne

For my John Donne course, our final assignment was to write a verse epistle - a letter in poetry form. I made several attempts to copy Donne's style, iambic pentameter couplets, but when I write like that I focus too much on the rhyme and not enough on what I'm saying. So this is the final version. I chose instead to work on meter, with the lines alternating between 8 and 6 syllables each. It was written to a good friend.

I cannot claim some noble cause

Behind this letter’s birth;

Just me to you, these simple facts,

No Gospel hidden here.

You are a friend, a good one too,

Far better friend than I,

So let this letter be a gift,

However small it be.

I say a gift in that it may

Enrich the skill you have,

For everyone who takes the time

May learn from dear John Donne.

To tell the truth, I fear that man,

His wit and truth and skill,

No matter what a scholar says

He stands without a peer,

For me to read such perfect verse,

A joy and yet a dread,

What hope have I to ever write

With half the skill he had?

That does not mean I love him not,

I cannot keep away,

For though I’m thick, he teaches me

How best to live and love,

Although his life was full of pain,

He never gave up hope,

But grappled with his rhymes and God,

And grappling, came to peace.

Our dear St. Clive, he thought Donne cheap,

Derivative and dull,

But he was wrong, he’s not to me,

And that’s what matters most,

For when I read his verse aloud

I cannot help but cry,

Such beauty laced with so much pain,

Emotion shown without

Disgrace, both love and shame and hope.

If he endured such hurt

And made it safely through, how could

I not go on myself,

And live my life for God? I wish

I could convey to you

How much he means to me, my first

Great love – what days were spent

Dazzled at his feats!

I hope in time you’ll read him too,

Give him his proper chance,

For one who cared so very much

About the lives we live

Can give so much to each of us,

As poets and as friends.

If nothing else, in reading him,

He’ll help you read my mind

And see more clearly how I tick,

One facet of my thought.

I hope that then I’ll seem less strange,

More human and less odd,

Or, at very least, a man who

Loves and hopes, by God’s great

Grace, for all the best of those he

Knows, and though he often

Fails, by love his failures are born.