Metaphysical poetry in the seventeenth century broke away from conventions of lyrical poetry. The difference is apparent in the choice of cacophonous imagery...
Johnson put five poets in this category: John Donne, Andrew Marvel, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan. However, they never worked as an organized literary movement. They didn't even read each other. It is only today that we can consider them akin.
As for cacophonous imagery, it was one of their foremost characteristics. The word choices and similes would often be shocking and unusual, not just for their own time but even later. For example, comparing two lovers' souls with two compasses in Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
The answer to this question is ended. This is because it is an essential verb.
She is speaking about times in which man becomes most desperate that in times where one is attacked, hurt or in a position from which something awful may occur they become their most powerful. This can be related to times where you struggled and found strength within yourself to do what you thought was impossible.
