Analysis of Holy Sonnet IX: If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree
John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And Mercy being easy, and glorious
To God; in his stern wrath, why threatens he?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee
O God? Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory;
That thou remember them, some claim as debt,
I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.
Scheme | ABBAABBAACCADD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001000111 1111110101 11001110100 1011011111 1101110101 1111001110 01010100100 1101111101 1111110111 1111110101 0111010011 0101111100 1101011111 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 574 |
Words | 111 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 444 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 109 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 186 Views
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"Holy Sonnet IX: If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22512/holy-sonnet-ix%3A-if-poisonous-minerals%2C-and-if-that-tree>.
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