John Donne's Vision

John Donne (1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary, born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. He married Anne More in 1601 when she was 17 and he was 30 or 31.

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Donne had gone to Paris (1612) at about the same time as his wife Anne, was about to give birth to their eighth child in London. 

Izaac Walton records in his biography of Donne:

“Two days after their arrival there, Mr Donne was left alone, in the room in which Sir Robert [Drury], and he, and some friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour and he  found Mr Donne alone; but, in such ecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him: insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befallen him in the short time of his absence? To which Mr Donne was not able to make present answer: but after a long and perplexed pause, did at last say:

I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife passed twice by me through this room with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I have seen since I saw you. 

To which Sir Robert replied, Surely Sir, you have slept since I saw you, and this is a result of some melancholy dream which I desire you to forget for you are now awake. To which Mr Donne's reply was: 

I cannot be surer that I now live than that I have not slept since I saw you: and am as sure that at her second appearing, she stopped and looked me in the face and vanished.

He sent a messenger to London the next morning. The man returned 12 days later. Anne, he said, had borne a stillborn child the same day and about the very hour that Mr Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his chamber.