Born in London, graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, and living her adult life mainly at the family home, 7 Endsleigh Gardens, London, Amy Levy was a feminist Jewish poet and novelist of distinction.
All the poems by Donne included here, except "The First Anniversary" (1611) and "The Second Anniversary" (1612), were first published, after Donne's death, in the 1633 or 1635 editions of Poems, by J. D. Most of the non-religious poems may have been written by the time he was twenty-five.