Beyond th’ old Pillars many have travalled Towards the sun’s cradle, and his throne, and bed. A fitter pillar our Earl did bestow In that late island; for he well did know Farther than Wingfield no man dares to go.
Where this text comes from
First published in Edmund Gosse, The Life and Letters of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's (London, William Heinemann, 1899), vol. I, p. 51, as “Il Cavaliere Gio: Wingefield”. Not in any of the old editions of the Poems. Gosse prints it from the Westmoreland MS., calling it “one unpublished epigram”; the page is on the scan. Grierson's 1912 edition also takes its text from that manuscript. [1] [2]
Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.
Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-donne_poetry, epigrams.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).
Earlier sources (3)
This poem as JSON or plain text . Line anchors #L1–#L5.
Cite this poem
John Donne (1572–1631).
“Sir John Wingfield.” First published in Edmund Gosse, The Life and Letters of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's (London, William Heinemann, 1899), vol. I, p. 51, as “Il Cavaliere Gio: Wingefield”.
Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/john-donne/sir-john-wingfield/.
Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.
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