Analysis of The Damp

John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)



When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,—
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of love
Will through all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre.

Poor victories! But if you dare be brave,
And pleasure in your conquest have,
First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain,
And let th' enchantress Honour next be slain,
And like a Goth and Vandal rise,
Deface records and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And, without such advantage, kill me then.

For I could muster up as well as you
My giants, and my witches too,
Which are vast Constancy and Secretness;
But these I neither look for nor profess.
Kill me as woman, let me die
As a mere man; do you but try
Your passive valour, and you shall find then,
Naked you have odds enough of any man.


Scheme AXBBXXCC XXDDEXFF GGEXAAFX
Poetic Form
Metre 1111010111 0110100 1111110111 1111110011 11010111 1111101 0111110101 1101011100 1100111111 01001101 111101010101 011111111 01010101 01010100 1111010101 0011010111 1111011111 11001101 11110001 1111011101 11110111 10111111 110101111 10111011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 896
Words 178
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 234
Words per stanza (avg) 58
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 25, 2023

53 sec read
180

John Donne

John Donne was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and a cleric in the Church of England. more…

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