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This is my play's last scene Summary & Analysis
by John Donne

This is my play's last scene Summary & Analysis
by John Donne

  • Intro
  • Summary
  • Themes
  • Line-by-Line
    Explanations
  • Poetic
    Devices
  • Vocabulary &
    References
  • Form, Meter, &
    Rhyme Scheme
  • Speaker
  • Setting
  • Context
  • Resources
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The Full Text of “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene”

1This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint

2My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,

3Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,

4My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;

5And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint

6My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space;

7But my'ever-waking part shall see that face

8Whose fear already shakes my every joint.

9Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight,

10And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

11So fall my sins, that all may have their right,

12To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell.

13Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil,

14For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Introduction

    • John Donne's "Holy Sonnet 6" (also known by its first words, "This is my play's last scene") is a meditation on death, the body, and the soul. The poem's speaker imagines what it will be like to die and pictures their soul's "flight" to heaven to meet God face to face—a prospect that fills the speaker with terror. Meanwhile, they imagine their body—and all the sins committed during earthly life—being left behind. The poem was probably written around 1609 and sits alongside 18 other poems collectively known as Donne's Holy Sonnets.

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Summary

    • My death is the last scene in the metaphorical "play" of my life. God has decided that my life's journey has reached its last mile. My life is like a meandering race that nevertheless sped by and now enters its final stretch, the final inch, the final few seconds. Soon, ravenous death will abruptly separate my body from my soul, and I will sleep for a while. But my soul, the part of me that's always awake, will soon see the face of God—a prospect that makes my whole body tremble with fear. As my soul soars upwards to heaven, where she first came from, my physical body will stay behind, buried in the ground. Likewise, my sins will fall back to where they came from and would like to force me to go—that is, hell. Make me virtuous and holy, ridding me of evil, and I'll leave behind the material world, my body, and Satan.

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Themes

    • Theme The Separation of the Body and Soul in Death

      The Separation of the Body and Soul in Death

      The speaker of "This is my play's last scene," the sixth poem in John Donne's Holy Sonnets sequence, imagines what it's like to die and envisions the soul's "flight" to heaven. Though the speaker is also a little frightened by the prospect of meeting God face to face, the poem ultimately presents death as a liberating release from earthly life. Death divides the soul from the body, the speaker argues, which, in turn, means that death frees people from their bodily sins.

      The speaker personifies death as a greedy glutton who waits in the wings to devour the body while the soul flies free. Death "will instantly unjoint / My body and my soul," the speaker says. The body and soul are not the same thing, in the speaker's mind, and death marks a sudden break between the two. (This speaker might be on their deathbed, but more likely, they're anticipating what death will be like when the time comes).

      The speaker believes that this separation of their body and soul will also mark a clean break from their sins, as both body and soul take their rightful places in the afterlife. The speaker's "earth-born body" will "dwell" in the earth (perhaps awaiting reunion with the soul at some later date). The soul (personified as female) will return to heaven, where she will resume "her first seat"—that is, her original, pre-life position. And the speaker's sins (they hope!) will "fall" back "to where they're bred"—that is, down to hell.

      The speaker believes (or, at least, wants to believe) that dying purifies the soul, cleansing it of its associations not just with the body, but with sin itself. After all, those sins can only thrive through the bodily desires of earthly life. Once the speaker is separated from earthly life, it follows, they will leave those sins behind.

    • Theme Fear of Death and God's Judgment

      Fear of Death and God's Judgment

      The speaker of "Holy Sonnet 6" argues that the soul is separate from the body and soars up to heaven when one dies. Death is thus a purification of sorts, as the body—and all its bodily sins—remains far below. The speaker might believe all of the above, of course, but they won't know it's true until they die. Like some of Donne's other Holy Sonnets, then, the poem also expresses a fear of death (and of the speaker's earthly sins coming back to haunt them). God is almighty and omniscient, the poem implies, and it's beyond the speaker's powers to know how God will judge them.

      The speaker accepts that death is natural and inescapable. They begin the poem by depicting earthly life as a play, a pilgrimage, and a race. These are all finite, time-based events that have definitive endpoints (e.g., a play's closing scene). Just as a play has a finale and a race has a finish line, life as a soul in a body has an inevitable conclusion.

      Yet though the speaker seems excited to reunite with God, the "fear" of God "already shakes [their] every joint." The speaker ends the poem with what sounds like a confident order but is, in truth, a prayer or petition to God: "Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil." The speaker longs to be judged favorably and made entirely holy and virtuous in the model of Jesus Christ.

      Through such a transformation, the speaker hopes to leave "the [material] world, the flesh, the devil" behind. Yet it's only in death that they'll find out their fate once and for all. In other words, as the speaker nears their "play's last scene" (the end of their life), they're waiting to find out whether the ending will be happy or tragic. They anticipate that it'll be the first—but they're also praying it won't be the second.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene”

    • Lines 1-2

      This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
      My pilgrimage's last mile;

      The speaker dramatically describes (or imagines) the final moments of their life using a series of metaphors. First, they call this time "my play's last scene." This metaphor might make readers think of Shakespeare's famous lines from As You Like It: "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players." In any case, the idea is simple enough: life is a brief drama in which everyone, including the speaker, plays their part. But life is also fleeting, the ending (death) already written into the script.

      The speaker then switches gears, treating life as a journey rather than a play:

      [...] here heavens appoint
      My pilgrimage's last mile;

      The word "pilgrimage" presents life as a journey undertaken in order to reunite with God in heaven—and God has decided that the speaker's life's journey is almost done.

      Notice how both of the opening lines feature caesura and repetition. Each line is divided in half, creating a choppy rhythm that adds to the poem's anxious tone. The speaker will use the phrase "my + [metaphor]" over and over again, and this parallelism suggests that the speaker is obsessing over their fate. The way the speaker jumps from one metaphorical idea to another also might signal a kind of spiritual restlessness. It sounds, perhaps, like the speaker wants a comforting, reassuring way of thinking about the end of their life—but it doesn't come all that easily.

    • Lines 2-4

      and my race,
      Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
      My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;

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    • Lines 5-8

      And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
      My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space;
      But my'ever-waking part shall see that face
      Whose fear already shakes my every joint.

    • Lines 9-12

      Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight,
      And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
      So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
      To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell.

    • Lines 13-14

      Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil,
      For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Antithesis

      The speaker uses antithesis in lines 9-12, emphasizing the contrasting fates of the soul and the body (and all the body's sins).

      The speaker believes that when they die their soul will "take[] flight" and go back to heaven. The body, by contrast, "shall dwell" in the earth, buried in the ground. And the speaker's sins will "fall" down to hell. This, the speaker suggests, is where sins belong: it's where they're "bred," and it's also where the sins try to force human beings to go. Everything, then, will be in its right place.

      Notice how the grammatical structure of the sentence creates a sense of balance and harmony: "as" the soul does this and goes here, "so" the sins do this and go there. The juxtaposition of "flight" and "fall" makes this separation seem all the more powerful and permanent. Death offers a kind of purification for the soul, the speaker implies, which is allowed to leave the body—with all its earthly desires—behind. The spirit is something light, eternal; the body is stuck in the earth, and heavy sin plummets to hell. Through this anthesis, the speaker illustrates how death helps the soul get as far away from those sins as possible.

    • Caesura

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    • Metaphor

    • Repetition

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Appoint
    • Pilgrimage
    • Idly
    • Hath
    • Pace
    • Span
    • Latest Point
    • Gluttonous
    • Unjoint
    • A Space
    • Ever-waking Part
    • My Every Joint
    • Seat
    • Right
    • Press Me
    • Impute Me Righteous
    • Purg'd
    • The World
    • The flesh
    Appoint

    • Decide/dictate.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene”

    • Form

      "Holy Sonnet 6" is a Petrarchan sonnet, though it borrows elements from the English sonnet form too. Named after the Italian poet that popularized it, Petrarchan sonnets consist of two main sections: an opening octave and a closing sestet. The octave itself comprises two quatrains that each rhyme ABBA.

      A Petrarchan sonnet features a shift in line 9, marking the transition between octave and sestet. This is called the sonnet's volta. Here, that change in direction is more of an acceleration of thought, the speaker picturing the "flight" of their soul up to heaven. There's a definite shift though, emphasized by the turn to a new rhyme scheme (from ABBA to CDCD). The division between octave and sestet might also echo the split between the body and the soul.

      The sestet of Petrarchan sonnets is divided into two tercets, or three-line stanzas. But Donne actually breaks this sestet into a third quatrain (again, rhyming CDCD) and a concluding couplet (which makes it resemble an English sonnet). This couplet gives the poem a final dramatic push, the speaker pleading with God to be made pure, and praying to gain entry into the heavenly afterlife.

    • Meter

      "Holy Sonnet 6" uses the typical sonnet meter: iambic pentameter. Each line consists of five iambs, poetic feet that follow an unstressed-stressed (da-DUM) syllable pattern. In line 8, that meter rings out clear and true:

      Whose fear | alread-| y shakes | my ever-| y joint.

      John Donne is known for playing a bit fast and loose with meter, however, and this poem is no exception. (Ben Jonson, a contemporary of Donne's, famously said that "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging"—a tad extreme, perhaps!)

      There are many variations on iambic pentameter throughout "Holy Sonnet 6." Even line 1 isn't metrically perfect: that first foot can be scanned as a trochee (the opposite of an iamb: DUM-da; "This is") or even a spondee (two stressed beats, "This is"); either way, this begins the poem with a burst of drama and intensity. There's another trochee at the top of line 3: "Idly."

      And the poem's final two lines both close on unstressed beats:

      Impute | me right- | eous, thus | purg'd of | evil,
      For thus | I leave | the world, | the flesh, | the devil.

      There are other variations here as well (line 15 has an extra syllable, for example). Tweaks like this prevent the poem from feeling overly stiff or predictable; they keep the rhythm fresh and exciting throughout.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      The rhyme scheme in "Holy Sonnet 6" runs:

      ABBAABBA CDCDEE

      The rhyme scheme in the octave matches that of a Petrarchan sonnet perfectly. The sestet shakes things up: usually, a Petrarchan sonnet would end CDCDCD OR CDECDE; here, the speaker inserts a third quatrain, now with an alternating pattern (CDCD), and then ends with a succinct couplet. This makes the second half of the poem resemble an English or Shakespearean sonnet.

      This couplet adds a little extra rhetorical power to the sonnet's ending. It also links the "devil" directly with "evil"—two terrors the speaker hopes that death will help them escape.

      Note, too, that a couple of the rhyming pairs are quite unusual: "appoint"/"point" (line 1 and 4) and "unjoint"/"joint" (lines 5 and 8). In each pair, the first word loses its first syllable; a division takes place. This subtly mirrors the separation of the soul from the body in death.

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Speaker

    • The speaker of "Holy Sonnet 6" is someone grappling with their imminent death, hoping it will bring about their soul's release from the pains of earthly life and grant them space in heaven. While it's not necessary to think of the speaker as Donne himself, the speaker certainly shares a lot of common ground with the poet. Donne had many religious worries throughout his life (and plenty of sinful behavior in his past that might, in his mind, have prevented his entry into heaven).

      Note, too, that the speaker depicts their own soul as female. This is probably a Renaissance-era way to portray God as an all-powerful male figure, and the speaker as submissive and obedient (Donne does this more explicitly in "Holy Sonnet 14").

  • “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Setting

    • "Holy Sonnet 6" takes place in the final moments of the speaker's life, though it's not clear if the speaker is literally on their deathbed or simply imagining what this moment will one day be like. Either way, the speaker envisions the "last mile" of the metaphorical "pilgrimage" of life. Their "race" is almost over, and too soon. Life on earth is brief, the poem implies, especially in comparison with the eternal, "ever-waking" life of the soul in heaven.

      After death, the speaker imagines their soul flying up to meet God while their body remains buried in the earth and their sins plummet down to hell—where, the speaker says, those sins belong. These descriptions emphasize the separation between the speaker's soul, body, and transgressions. In death, the poem argues, everything, eventually, takes up its "right[ful]" place.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene”

      Literary Context

      John Donne (1572-1631) is remembered as one of the foremost of the "metaphysical poets"—though he never called himself one. The later writer Samuel Johnson coined the term, using it to describe a set of 17th-century English writers who wrote witty, passionate, intricate, cerebral poetry about love and God; George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Thomas Traherne were some others.

      Donne was the prototypical metaphysical poet: a master of elaborate conceits and complex sentences and a great writer of love poems that mingle images of holiness with filthy puns. But during his lifetime, he was mostly a poet in private. In public life, he was an important clergyman, rising to become Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

      This poem is one of the "Holy Sonnets," a sonnet sequence in which the speaker grapples with the pains and rewards of his faith (sometimes in strangely erotic terms). Though the speaker here confronts their own mortality, it was written well before Donne himself died.

      Donne's mixture of wit, passion, and mysticism fell out of literary favor after his 17th-century heyday; Johnson, for instance, a leading figure of the 18th-century Enlightenment, did not mean "metaphysical poet" as a compliment, seeing Donne and his contemporaries as obscure and irrational. But 19th-century Romantic poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge were stirred by Donne's mixture of philosophy and emotion, and their enthusiasm slowly resurrected Donne's reputation. Donne is now remembered as one of the most powerful and influential of poets, and he's inspired later writers from T.S. Eliot to A.S. Byatt.

      Historical Context

      John Donne was born during an era in which Protestantism had become the official state religion of Britain. English Catholics were often persecuted and killed. Donne himself was born into a Catholic family; his own brother went to prison for hiding a priest in his home. (The priest, not so fortunate, was tortured and executed.)

      All this violence emerged from the schism between English Catholics and Protestants that began during the reign of Henry VIII, who died about 30 years before Donne was born. Wishing to divorce his first wife and marry a second—unacceptable under Catholicism—Henry split from the Pope and founded his own national Church of England (also known as the Anglican church). This break led to generations of conflict and bloodshed between Anglican Protestants and Catholic loyalists.

      Donne himself would eventually renounce Catholicism in order to become an important Anglican clergyman under the patronage of King James I. While his surviving sermons suggest he had a sincere change of heart about his religion, his frequent use of Catholic language (for instance, in his love poem "The Canonization") hints that he didn't altogether abandon the beliefs of his youth.

  • More “Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene” Resources

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