Poet, priest, lawyer, sensualist and intellectual, John Donne died in 1631 and it took more than 250 years for a full-scale resurrection. Then in 1899 Arthur Symons sounded the first real trumpet. T S Eliot’s essay on metaphysical poets in 1919 highlighted John Donne again and suddenly there was a bridge linking reason and passion. Donne’s own standing has endured ever since as one of England’s greatest national poetic treasures.