Scansion Help, Holy Sonnet 7

Hi all,

For my english course I need to do an analysis of the meter and rhythm of Donne's Holy Sonnet 7.

Here is the original poem.

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.




Here is my scansion of lines 5-13. (Lines 1-4, 14 my professor assisted with.)


At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
All whom | the flood | did, and | fire shall | o'erthrow, (iamb iamb pyrrhic trochee trochee)?
All whom | war, death, | age, ag | ues, tyr | annies, (iamb spondee spondee iamb iamb)???
Despair, | law, chance | hath slain, | and you,| whose eyes (iamb spondee iamb iamb iamb)
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. (perfect iambic pentameter)
But let | them sleep, | Lord, and | me mourn | a space ; (iamb iamb pyrrhic trochee pyrrhic)
For, if above all these my sins abound, (perfect iambic pentameter)
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, (iambic pentameter)
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground, (perfect iambic pentameter)
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good (perfect iambic pentameter)
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

Ok, I really don't trust my scansion. I've never scanned a poem before and I know Donne's a bit tricky, and I'm sure I made a thousand mistakes. I feel like some of my lines are way too bizarre, even for Donne. But since my essay is based upon this poem (and simply that I find it interesting!) I'd really appreciate any critique.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ooh! Scansion. I'm more familiar with Latin scansion than English, but I'll give it a go.

Line 5: All whom | the flood | did, and | fire shall | o'erthrow,
I got: (iamb, iamb, spondee, trochee, iamb)
IMO, that comma in the middle makes both syllables stressed

Line 6: All whom | war, death, | age, ag | ues, tyr | annies,
I got: (iamb, spondee, spondee, iamb, pyrrhic)
I looked up "ague" and the dictionary puts the stress on the first syllable. "Tyrannies" sounds to me like a dactyl (stressed, unstressed, unstressed), but that would mess up the pentameter. That's probably just the Latin in my speaking.

Line 7: Despair, | law, chance | hath slain, | and you,| whose eyes
I got: (iamb, spondee, iamb, iamb, iamb)
Identical to yours!

Line 8: Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
I got: (trochee, spondee, iamb, iamb, spondee)
I parsed it as trochee in the first foot, because the stress in "behold" is on the second syllable.

Line 9: But let | them sleep, | Lord, and | me mourn | a space ;
I got: (iamb, iamb, spondee, iamb, iamb)

Line 10: For, if above all these my sins abound,
I got: (trochee, iamb, iamb, iamb, iamb)
Again, the comma makes me pause after "for" which seems to accent it.

Line 11: 'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
I got: (iamb, iamb, iamb, pyrrhic, iamb)

Line 12: When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
I got: (iamb, iamb, trochee, iamb, iamb)

Line 13: Teach me how to repent, for that's as good.
I got: (spondee, iamb, iamb, iamb, iamb)

One thing I observed when I was parsing was that I used the pyrrhic much less than you. I don't know if I'm right, but I get the feeling that the pyrrhic occurs less often than the iamb, trochee, and spondee. But, again, I may be biased by my Latin training.

Good luck!