John Donne

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Bust of John Donne by Nigel Boonham, 2012
St Paul's Churchyard, City of London
London, September 2014

“A statue of John Donne, one of England’s foremost poets and priests, and a Dean of St Paul's, has been unveiled in the newly completed garden to the south of the cathedral. The bronze bust, by artist Nigel Boonham FRBS, points almost due west but shows Donne turning to face east towards his birthplace on Bread Street, just yards from the cathedral. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and of death. Underneath the bust is inscribed the Donne text:

Hence is't, that I am carried towards the West,
This day, when my Soul's form bends to the East”

(New John Donne statue unveiled in the shadow of St Paul's, St Paul's Cathedral)