Metaphysical poetry in the seventeenth century broke away from conventions of lyrical poetry. The difference is apparent in the choice of cacophonousimagery...
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.
