<Tr> <Th> Rhyme scheme </Th> <Td> abba abba cddcae </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Lines </Th> <Td> 14 </Td> </Tr> <P> Sonnet X, also known by its opening words as "Death Be Not Proud", is a fourteen - line poem, or sonnet, by English poet John Donne (1572--1631), one of the leading figures in the metaphysical poets of seventeenth - century English literature . Written between February and August 1609, it was not published during Donne's lifetime; it was first published posthumously in 1633 . </P> <P> It is included as one of the nineteen sonnets that comprise Donne's Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations, among his most well - known works . Most editions number the poem as the tenth in the sonnet sequence, which follows the order of poems in the Westmoreland Manuscript (circa 1620), the most complete arrangement of the cycle, discovered in the late nineteenth century . However, two editions published shortly after Donne's death include the sonnets in a different order, where this poem appears as eleventh in the Songs and Sonnets (published 1633) and sixth in Divine Meditations (published 1635). </P>

Who wrote the poem death be not proud