The Full Text of “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”
1Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
2Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
3I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
4And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
5I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
6Despair behind, and death before doth cast
7Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
8By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
9Only thou art above, and when towards thee
10By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
11But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
12That not one hour I can myself sustain;
13Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
14And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
The Full Text of “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”
1Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
2Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
3I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
4And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
5I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
6Despair behind, and death before doth cast
7Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
8By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
9Only thou art above, and when towards thee
10By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
11But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
12That not one hour I can myself sustain;
13Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
14And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Introduction
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"Thou hast made me" is the first of The Holy Sonnets, a series of poems on religious belief and uncertainty by English metaphysical poet and Anglican cleric John Donne. Written between 1609 and 1611, The Holy Sonnets were published posthumously in 1633. This first sonnet is a sinner's plea for God's grace in the face of death. The ailing speaker, looking back on their life's wrongdoings, recognizes that only through God's help can they resist the devil and achieve heavenly salvation.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Summary
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God, you created me. Will I, your creation, fall to ruin? Restore me to my former goodness quickly, because soon I will die. Death and I speed toward each other, and all the enjoyable parts of life are past. I am terrified to look in any direction, because sorrow lies behind me and death lies ahead. My sickly body weakens because of my sins, which drag me down toward hell. But God, you are in heaven, and when you allow me to look toward you I rise out of my sinfulness. Still, the devil's temptation is impossible to resist for long without your help. Your grace gives me wings that allow me to escape sin. Like a magnet, you pull my heart toward you.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Themes
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Humanity's Reliance on God's Grace
"Thou hast made me" is the first of The Holy Sonnets, a series of poems by John Donne that examines religious devotion and doubt. This poem's speaker, who has lived a sinful life and is now approaching death, wishes to be a better person and asks for God's help. The speaker claims that no matter how hard they try to resist temptation, only God's intervention can protect them from the devil. In this way, the poem argues that humans are incapable of resisting sin under their own steam and must look toward God for the divine grace necessary to be saved.
The poem emphasizes that the speaker was created by God and in doing so suggests that God bears some responsibility for preserving the speaker's soul. The speaker begins the poem by asking, "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" By addressing this rhetorical question directly to God, the speaker implies that their spiritual fate is in God's control and not their own. "Repair me now," the speaker then demands, urging their creator to care for rather than abandon them. Thus, the poem suggests that there is a unique relationship between God and humankind, not unlike that between builder and building. All goodness belongs to God, so humanity relies on God's grace for salvation, just as a building relies on its builder for upkeep and repair.
God's help is so important to the speaker because without it the temptation of sin is impossible to resist. The poem draws attention to God's great distance from the speaker: "Only thou art above," the speaker says, in contrast with "death" and "sin" which exist at the speaker's level, down on earth. Only by God's "leave" can the speaker "look" and "rise" upward, closing the distance between God and themselves. In other words, God must allow the speaker to be a good, holy person. Without this willing aid from God, the devil, "our old subtle foe," drags the speaker back toward a life of sin.
The poem thus argues that only through God's grace can humanity choose good over evil. While humans may have been created with free will, the devil is a constant, active presence in their lives. God's assistance is necessary to overcome this presence. Without God, humans would not exist, and without God's grace, human goodness would not exist, either.
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The Mortal Body vs. the Immortal Soul
"Thou hast made me" presents sin as the "decay" of the soul and death as the "decay" of the body. While the speaker sees both forms of decay as sources of "terror," the poem suggests that bodily decay must be accepted, while spiritual decay can be headed off through God's grace.
From the beginning of the poem, the speaker is well aware of death's rapid approach. "Mine end doth haste," the speaker states, recognizing that the end of their life is close at hand. Meanwhile, in the line, "I run to death, and death meets me as fast," the speaker emphasizes that mortality is unavoidable. Even though death frightens the speaker, they have no choice but to run directly toward it. As death and the speaker near each other, the speaker experiences physical decay. "My feebled flesh doth waste," the speaker says, looking in horror upon the deterioration of their mortal body.
The speaker is less worried about the decay of their body, however, than the decay of their soul. Without a pure, intact soul, the speaker believes they won't make it to heaven. The speaker claims that sin acts as a moral weight dragging them down "towards hell." In this way, the poem argues that when the body dies, the soul continues to live, either with the devil in hell or with God in paradise. The speaker then asks for God's "grace" to "prevent" the devil's "art" of temptation. If sin drags the speaker toward hell, the poem implies, then divine goodness helps the speaker "rise" toward God and heaven.
Therefore, when the speaker asks God to "repair" them at the beginning of the poem, they are praying for an end to spiritual rather than physical decay. The body is impermanent and will inevitably be destroyed, but the soul lives on eternally and can be healed and restored with help from God.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”
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Line 1
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
"Holy Sonnet 1" begins with a rhetorical question addressed as an apostrophe to God: "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" In other words, "You made me God, and will you let your creation fall to ruin?"
The speaker does not expect an answer to this question but rather poses it in order to highlight God's responsibility to care for all creation. By characterizing themselves as God's "work," the speaker likens their relationship with God to that of a building and its builder, or a painting and its artist. The speaker has been created by God and is therefore inherently dependent upon divine grace to thrive—to keep from "decay[ing]."
It's worth noting the unusual meter of this opening line. True to sonnet form, "Holy Sonnet 1" is written primarily in iambic pentameter: a meter in which each line has five iambs, poetic feet containing two syllables arranged in an unstressed-stressed rhythm. However, the poem's opening line departs from iambic pentameter by beginning with two trochees, which follow a stressed-unstressed pattern:
Thou hast | made me, | and shall | thy work | decay?
This use of trochees draws attention to God ("Thou") and God's power (God has "made" the speaker). That is, the poem's rhythms emphasize that the speaker is talking to God directly and that the speaker is God's creation.
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Lines 2-4
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday; -
Lines 5-8
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. -
Lines 9-12
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour I can myself sustain; -
Lines 13-14
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Apostrophe
Apostrophe appears throughout "Thou hast made me," increasing the poem's sense of urgency and desperation. The speaker is a sinner whose death is rapidly approaching. Horrified by their past wrongdoings and by the desolation that lies ahead of them, they are compelled to appeal directly to God for guidance and help.
In the poem's opening line, the speaker uses the second person pronoun "thou" to call out to God: "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" By addressing this rhetorical question directly to God, the speaker suggests that, as their creator, God bears some responsibility for the speaker's spiritual fate. To question God in this way is an undeniably bold act, one informed by the speaker's wretched situation. Likewise, the second-person command "Repair me now" in line 2 implies a sense of anguish so great that the speaker feels they have no choice but to call upon God directly, unabashedly requesting divine assistance.
Apostrophe returns in the final six lines of the poem, in which the despairing speaker turns again to God. In lines 9 and 10, however, this apostrophe feels a bit humbler, more reserved than the speaker's earlier calls to God: "Only thou art above," the speaker says in reverent recognition of God's unique power and utter holiness, "and when towards thee / by thy leave I can look, I rise again." Here, as in the last couplet of the poem in which the speaker asks for "Thy grace," apostrophe allows the speaker to express their total vulnerability and dependence upon God for salvation.
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Rhetorical Question
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Caesura
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Alliteration
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Simile
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"Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?" 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.
- Thou/Thee/Thy
- Doth
- Feebled
- Leave
- Subtle
- Sustain
- Wing
- Adamant
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Old-fashioned second-person pronouns. "Thou" and "thee" mean "you." "Thou" is used as the subject of a sentence, and "thee" is used as the object. "Thy" means "your."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”
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Form
"Thou hast made me" combines the conventions of the English and Italian sonnet. As is traditional of both forms, the poem contains 14 lines. Like an English sonnet, these lines are broken into three quatrains and a concluding couplet:
- Quatrain
- Quatrain
- Quatrain
- Couplet
However, the rhyme scheme of the poem's first eight lines follows that of an Italian sonnet (ABBA ABBA), while the rhyme scheme of the last six lines follows that of an English sonnet (CDCD EE). In this way, the poem's first eight lines are set apart from the final six, such that the overall structure also faintly echoes the opening octave and concluding sestet traditionally used in an Italian sonnet.
As is also typical of an Italian sonnet, a tonal shift occurs between lines 8 and 9. This is called the poem's turn or volta. The speaker spends the first two quatrains (the octave) in despair over their state of physical and spiritual decay, but in line 9 turns back toward God with newfound hope for salvation.
However, as in an English sonnet, the poem's central problem continues to develop until its last two lines, where what essentially amounts to a second volta appears. In the third quatrain, the speaker introduces the devil's temptation as an impossible-to-resist force, an issue resolved, finally, in the last couplet, in which the speaker recognizes God's grace as the sole source of human salvation.
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Meter
As is traditional of a sonnet, the primary meter used in "Thou hast made me" is iambic pentameter. The majority of the poem's lines follow this meter perfectly: they each contain five iambs, poetic feet consisting of two syllables arranged in an unstressed-stressed pattern (for a total of ten syllables per line). Take, for example, lines 2 and 3:
Repair | me now, | for now | mine end | doth haste,
I run | to death, | and death | meets me | as fast,The steady succession of iambs, which mimic the beating of a heart or marching feet, lends the poem a sense of forward momentum, mirroring the speaker's sense of urgency as they rapidly approach death.
However, there are a few moments in which the poet varies the meter for dramatic effect. This usually involves swapping in trochees, or poetic feet whose two syllables follow a stressed-unstressed pattern. For example, take the poem's opening line:
Thou hast | made me, | and shall | thy work | decay?
There's another example of a trochaic substitution in line 9:
Only | thou art | above, | and when | towards thee
Such breaks in the poem's meter draw the reader's attention to key moments. In line 1, for instance, the stress on "Thou" makes the speaker's direct appeal to God feel more forceful and urgent. The stress on "Only" also marks the poem's volta and again is a moment when the speaker directly appeals to God for divine assistance.
There's another departure from iambic pentameter in the poem's final line:
And thou | like ad- | amant draw | mine ir- | on heart.
Here, what should be line's third iamb is replaced by an anapest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed). Though subtle, this deviation from the primary meter slows the poem's pace, drawing out the last line while attracting attention to the word "adamant," upon which the poem's concluding analogy hinges.
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Rhyme Scheme
The first eight lines of "Thou hast made me" follow the traditional rhyme scheme of an Italian sonnet, while the concluding six lines follow that of an English sonnet. Overall, the rhyme scheme looks like this:
ABBA ABBA CDCD EE
While the poem is technically organized into three quatrains and a couplet as in a typical English sonnet, its hybrid rhyme scheme differentiates the opening eight lines from the concluding six. In this way, the poem is also subtly organized into an octave and sestet.
This mixture of the English and Italian sonnet forms allows the poem to have two turning points, or voltas. One occurs, as is typical of the Italian sonnet, between lines 8 and 9, when the despairing speaker turns back toward God. The other occurs, as is typical of the English sonnet, between lines 12 and 13, when the speaker recognizes, once and for all, that only divine grace can save them from the seemingly inescapable temptation of the devil.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Speaker
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While it's easy to assume that "Thou hast made me" is written from the perspective of John Donne, the poem's speaker remains anonymous and genderless within the text itself. What is clear, however, is that this speaker is ailing both physically and spiritually and is desperate for God's help.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker seems primarily concerned with their bodily well-being. In lines 2 and 3, for example, the speaker asks God in a demanding tone to "repair" them because their death is rapidly approaching. It seems, for a moment, as though the speaker is asking to be made physically healthy so that they can continue living.
However, as the poem goes on, it becomes clear that the speaker's primary concern is not their body but their soul. The speaker has lived a sinful life and feels directionless, terrified that the wrongdoings of their past will result in them being sent to hell after their inevitable death.
In line 9, the despairing speaker turns with newfound vigor back to God, hoping their soul can yet be saved. The speaker realizes that while on their own the devil's temptation is impossible to resist, through God's grace they can choose good over evil and can go to heaven rather than hell. Thus, over the course of the poem the speaker transitions from hopeless desperation to total faith in God's ability to help them overcome their spiritual shortcomings and achieve eternal life.
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“Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Setting
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"Thou hast made me" doesn't have a particular setting, beyond taking place towards the end of the speaker's life on earth. The speaker repeatedly points out that death is fast approaching and they also emphasize the great distance between themselves and God "above." The poem also depicts the ailing speaker as occupying a kind of in-between space, suspended, briefly, between "despair" and "death" as well as between heaven above and hell below.
While the poem's subject—sinfulness and fear of death—transcends time, its ideology, specifically the belief that human beings are dependent upon God for goodness and salvation, is consistent with much of 17th-century Christianity. Similarly, the word "adamant" ties the poem to 17th-century alchemy, in which adamant was a legendary stone known for its hardness and sometimes believed to be magnetic.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”
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Literary Context
John Donne (1572-1631) is considered by many to be the foremost of the "metaphysical poets," a term disparagingly coined by English critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loosely connected group of 17th-century poets who used wit, irony, and elaborate poetic conceits to examine subjects including religion, morality, and love. Other well-known poets from this movement include George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan.
Donne's poetry stood out among his contemporaries thanks to its direct, dramatic language, ideological ambiguity, and unusual imagery. "Thou hast made me" embodies all these qualities, with its bold second-person appeal to God and its complex examination of the connection between physical and spiritual health.
"Thou hast made me" is the first of Donne's Holy Sonnets, a series believed to have been written between 1609 and 1610 and published posthumously in 1633. While Donne's earlier work consists primarily of satires, elegies, and love poems, the Holy Sonnets turn toward more serious questions of religious devotion and uncertainty.
Donne's poems were not widely circulated during his lifetime but were increasingly read and published in the years following his death. Although his readership and praise wained during much of the 18th and 19th centuries, his place in the English canon was cemented during the first few decades of the 20th century, when poets like William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot derived great inspiration from the combination of passionate emotion and intellectual rigor that characterize his work.
Historical Context
Donne lived during a time of great religious upheaval in England. Around 40 years before his birth, King Henry VIII replaced the Catholic Pope, who refused to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, as head of the Church of England. Donne's family remained Catholic after England's transition to Protestantism, a decision that was illegal at the time. In fact, Donne's brother was at one point arrested for harboring a Catholic priest and later died in prison of the bubonic plague.
Unlike many of his family members, Donne eventually converted to Anglicanism and went on to become one of the most celebrated English clerics of the 17th century. It is remarkable, then, that Donne's youth was marked not by great piety and virtue, but rather by a reckless fondness for women and adventure. It is easy to imagine that Donne's transition from a worldly man to a devout one may have influenced "Thou hast made me," in which an ailing sinner turns toward God.
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More “Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Read Aloud — Listen to a recitation of "Holy Sonnet 1."
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John Donne Biography — Read a brief summary of Donne's life and work, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.
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The Holy Sonnets — Check out all 19 of Donne's Holy Sonnets.
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The Metaphysical Poets — Learn more about the metaphysical poets from this short reference entry in Encyclopedia Britannica.
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An Early Manuscript of Donne's Poems — Browse a 1632 handwritten manuscript of Donne's poems, including "Thou hast made me" on page 25. Courtesy of Harvard's Houghton Library.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by John Donne
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