G. M. Hopkins Heaven-haven
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- Petrarchan Sonnet
Lines 12-14[…] 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.
Symbol Analysis Many poems try to describe what the end of life will be like, but this one goes even further – it describes what the end of death will be like. In Christian theology, death is the price of admission into the afterlife, which really begins after the world has ended. People who have died before the world ends (that is, most people) are compared to sleepers waiting for the "dawn" of Judgment Day. The poem begins with angels blowing their trumpets to bring the dead back to life, and to reunite their souls with their bodies. The end of the poem also alludes to death: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The speaker decides in the second half of the poem that maybe he was hasty in calling for Judgment Day before knowing if he has been forgiven for his sins. He wants God to teach him how to repent, but repentance is harder than it sounds. One of the central Christian paradoxes is that people have already been saved by the death of Jesus Christ, but they can't be saved unless they come to faith by recognizing this sacrifice. The poem's complicated final simile grapples with this paradox.
Petrarchan SonnetThe Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is divided into two parts. The first part has eight lines and is called an octet. The second part has six lines and is called a sextet. The division between these two parts is called the turn, or volta, which sounds fancy until you realize that it's just the Italian word for "turn." This kind of sonnet is named after the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch, who made the form popular throughout Europe. This poem's "turn" at line 9 is about as dramatic an example of change as you can find. The turn is marked in the poetic equivalent of a huge neon sign – the word "But." This little three-letter word brings the entire vision of Judgment Day to a screeching halt. The poem is hurtling along with this vision, and then "but" shows up like a turtle waddling across the road, forcing the poem to slam on the brakes. In the second part of the poem, the speaker completely changes his mind about the whole project. "At the round earth's imagined corners" has a typical rhyme scheme for a Petrarchan sonnet: ABBA ABBA CDCD EE. Then again, not all the rhymes are perfect, a case in point being "arise" and "infinities" in lines 2 and 3. But you try to make a rhyme out of "infinities"! The poem's meter is iambic pentameter: an unstressed beat followed by a stressed beat. "'Tis late to ask a-bun-dance of thy grace." But, the poem has exceptions. Many exceptions. One of the most obvious can be found at the beginning: "At the round earth's […]." The poem has two unstressed beats followed by two stressed beats. The complicated rhythm makes this poem fun to listen to and read aloud. The first line of the poem sounds like the start of a race: "Take your mark, get set, GO!" vs. "At the round earth's imagined corners, BLOW!" Clearly Donne could not have intended this parallel, but that verb hanging at the end of the first line does set off a frenzy of linguistic energy. The first line carries over into the second without a pause. The technical term for this is enjambment. Holy Sonnet 7 has a lot of enjambment, and if you heard it aloud, you wouldn't know where the lines start and end. The speaker doesn't actually have the power to start Judgment Day, but he acts like a cheerleader at a race, urging the dead souls to "arise! arise!" and to "go!" to their scattered bodies. Then the poem pivots on the word "but." At this point, the speaker starts making excuses, and the sound of the poem becomes more dense and legalistic. The whole sonnet is filled with commas and pauses, but after the word "space" in line 9, there is a larger pause, as if the speaker were doubled-over and winded. Having bought himself a moment or two, our speaker tries to justify calling off Judgment Day. At the end, the poem begins to sound more like an official plea to a powerful person, like the "pardon" it describes in the last line.
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