ABSTRACT
Donne’s dilemma immediately before his ordination.] And yet even now he found it impossible to break away from his surroundings.
In spite of himself he was compelled to play the part of courtier, and to do the work of a court poet at the bidding of his patrons. From the moment when he had made up his mind to give himself up to the higher life and the service of the Church of Christ in the sanctuary, the hollowness of this wretched routine of amusement, and ceremony, and pomps, and vanities must have fretted his soul with a continual sense of emptiness. What a purposeless life he was leading! The world was just using him for its own ends, and what was he gaining by it all? God schools some men in one way, and some in another. Donne had to endure a very, very hard schooling. The closer we follow his career at this time, the sadder and more pitiful does it appear to a thoughtful reader.
