]]>TO PENSHURST.
Thou art not, PENSHURST, built to envious show
Of touch, or marble ; nor canst boast a row
Of polish’d pillars, or a roof of gold :
Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told ;
Or stair, or courts ; but stand’st an ancient pile,
And these grudg’d at, art reverenced the while.
Thou joy’st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water ; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport :
Thy mount, to which thy Dryads do resort, 10
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade ;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,
At his great birth, where all the Muses met.
A brief comparison of these authors will give you a pretty good idea of their divergent styles. While Johnson’s poetry is generally light or humorous in style, secular in subject, and often deals with love or sexuality, Donne’s is characterized by subtle argumentations and “metaphysical conceits,” often dealing with the soul or religion. Several metaphysical poets, especially John Donne, were influenced by NeoPlatonism. One of the primary Platonic concepts found in metaphysical poetry is the idea that the perfection of beauty in the beloved acted as a remembrance of perfect beauty in the eternal realm. (See John Donne – A Valediction Forbidden Mourning).
George Chapman
John Donne
George Herbert
Andrew Marvell
Saint Robert Southwell
Thomas Traherne
Henry Vaughan
*sometimes considered metaphysical poets:
* Thomas Carew
* Abraham Cowley
* Richard Crashaw
* Edward Herbert
* Richard Leigh
* Richard Lovelace
* Katherine Philips
* Sir John Suckling
* Edward Taylor
* Anne Bradstreet
Ben Jonson
Robert Herrick
Richard Lovelace
Thomas Carew
Sir John Suckling