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Given the great number of downloads for the other volumes, we are now putting on line the fifth volume of the works of John Donne, published with a translation by Fiornando Gabbrielli on facing pages. "I have collected here poems of various kinds, from letters in verse to sonnets, nuptial odes, epigrams, composed before 1600 - not so much for the obvious choice of date, but because the turn of the century actually coincides with a break in the poet's life, marking the passage from youth to maturity: the romping Jack, the brilliant Master of the Revels at Lincoln's Inn, the playboy who can love both the dark and the blonde, gives way to the more thoughtful and serious John, first secretary to the Lord Chancellor, then affectionate husband and father, lastly unquiet and disquieting Court preacher and Dean of St. Paul’s. It is the same period, and the same climate, as the Satires and the Elegies; that is why I have included here the poem Sappho to Philaenis, composed probably in 1601, but because of its subject (carnal love, and lesbian to boot), I judged it would provoke mutual embarrassment if published in company with the compassed works of maturity. Also a few epigrams composed after 1600 have been included for the same reason " f.g.,June 2005

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