Analysis of Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Playes Last Scene

John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)



This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint
My pilgrimages last mile; and my race
Idly, yet quickly runne, hath this last pace,
My spans last inch, my minutes latest point,
And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt
My body, and soule, and I shall sleepe a space,
But my'ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose feare already shakes my every joynt;
Then, as my soule, to'heaven her first seate, takes flight,
And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwell,
So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred, and would presse me, to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evill,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devill.


Scheme ABBAABBACDCDDD
Poetic Form
Metre 11111111001 1100011011 1011011111 1111110101 0100111001 11001011101 11101011111 11010111001 111111001111 0111000111 1111111111 1111011111 011101111 1111010101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 674
Words 119
Sentences 3
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 514
Words per stanza (avg) 117
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 15, 2023

36 sec read
117

John Donne

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

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