Analysis of Elegy:The End of Funeral Elegies

John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)



MADAM—
That I might make your cabinet my tomb,
And for my fame, which I love next my soul,
Next to my soul provide the happiest room,
Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.
Others by wills give legacies, but I
Dying, of you do beg a legacy.

My fortune and my will this custom break,
When we are senseless grown to make stones speak,
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
In my grave's inside seest what thou art now,
Yet thou 'rt not yet so good ; till death us lay
To ripe and mellow there, we're stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass ; here to grow gold we lie.
Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper'd is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcases.


Scheme XABABCD XXEEFFCCXD
Poetic Form
Metre 10 1111110011 0111111111 11110101001 01111111001 1011110011 1011110100 1100111101 1111011111 1111111111 0110111111 11111111111 1101011101 101110110 1111111111 10101110101 101011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 705
Words 137
Sentences 6
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 7, 10
Lines Amount 17
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 267
Words per stanza (avg) 69
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 08, 2023

42 sec read
150

John Donne

John Donne was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and a cleric in the Church of England. more…

All John Donne poems | John Donne Books

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