Verse letters to T.W. from John Donne: "By you my love is sent"

Relying on an audience of one for their impact, the verse letters of John Donne are closer to autobiography than anything else in his poetry. Among the most tender of these lyrics are the verse letters written to a young man named Thomas Woodward, whose older brother was one of Donne's closest friends. Using sexual metaphors, the poems reflect a homoerotic undercurrent and demonstrate affection that most readers of Donne associate only with his heterosexual love poems.