London - John Donne

In 2012 a new garden was completed outside St Paul's Cathedral to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics.  The new landscaping included the insertion of this bust of the poet John Donne  (1572-1631) who also served as the Dean of St Paul’s in 1621.  He was a gifted writer and preacher and is famed for creating the phrase “for whom the bell tolls” and “no man is an island”. 

The Dean was an important and well paid position which he held until his death ten years later.  He is buried in St Paul’s crypt and his memorial is one of the few to survive the Great Fire. 

At the base of the sculpture the compass directions remind us of four key events in his life.  Heading east Donne looks towards his birthplace in Bread Street; to the south he married Anne More and had twelve children; to the west he was at Lincoln’s Inn and to the north he was dean at St. Paul’s. Beneath the bust are his words:

“Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the West,

This day, when my Soul’s form bends to the East.”

This is an excerpt from the FREE tour St Paul's Precincts found on www.obelisktours.co.uk