Death's Duel and the Dean of St. Paul's

In February 1631, John Donne stood in the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, visibly wasting from stomach cancer, and preached what his friends called his own funeral sermon. The congregation wept. Donne looked like a man already halfway through the grave. Yet his voice carried a defiance that startled everyone present. Years earlier, Donne had written lines that still thunder across the centuries: "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so."…