Of John Donne's Book of Poems there was nothing in Mr. Nahum's first volume, much in the others. But what I then read of them I little understood. It is a poetry that awaits the mind as the body grows older, and when we have ourselves learned the experience of life with which it is concerned. Not that the simplest poetry will then lose anything of its grace and truth and beauty—far rather it shines the more clearly, since age needs it the more.
"His Picture in a sheet" refers to a drawing (prefixed to Donne's Poems') of his stone effigy. This shows him draped with a shroud, and may now be seen in St. Paul's Cathedral, of which he was the dean, and in whose pulpit a few days before his death he preached his last valedictory or farewell sermon.
"Living to Eternity."
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!...
Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day