John Donne: Holy Sonnet VII; need some help scanning, please
hello all,
winter break is almost over, so i thought i'd spend this week on donne's poetry. this morning, i was attempting to scan holy sonnet VII:
At the round earths imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never taste deaths woe.
But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee mourne a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
w'Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
hen wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon, with thy blood.
-- the last line is of interest.
i scanned each line, no problem, except for the last one; since it is 11 syllables, i figured it might be truncated, but the last foot ends in what is probably a spondee. can that possibly indicate a truncation, or not ?
so, this is what i have.. the bold-face indicates stress, the | indicates a foot:
As if | thou'hadst | seal'd my | pardon, | with thy | blood.
so, that makes an initial pyrrhic (weak-weak), a spondee (strong-strong), two trochees (?!!!), and an iamb. i am OBVIOUSLY not scanning it right.
my questions are:
1) can this line be truncated hexameter ? if so, how can i tell ?
2) is "thou'hadst" pronounced with one syllable, or two ? it is most likely two.
3) can i, instead of assuming each foot is two syllables, consider "thou'hadst seal'd" a three-syllable molossus (strong-strong-strong) ? in this way, i might, thru a stretch, scan the poem with three iambs instead of one.
4) if each foot can only be two syllables, but a line has, say, 11 syllables, does that imply truncation, and if not, what do i do about the last syllable ?