“At the round earth’s imagined corners” by John Donne discusses the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. It does not have a regular rhyme scheme, but all of the lines have at least a slant rhyming counterpart. At first, the poem discusses the return of the dead to their bodies. It then presents a gloomy list of how many of the people died. Most of the list is contained within line six which has the sound of a death knell with its string of accented syllables in the words “war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies.” These words also possess a preponderance of pronunciation that causes them to slow down on top of the steady accent. The diction thus supports the solemn statement. Earlier, when Donne refers to “you numberless infinities of souls,” the rhythm moves rapidly forward with only three accented syllables among the ten syllables in the phrase, suggesting how uncountable and numerous are the souls. The last line contains words that take a while to pronounce, thereby emphasizing the abiding longevity and significance of the “pardon” that the Lord “hadst sealed.” Donne comments on how he wants the Lord to let the resurrection of the dead wait for the Lord to teach him how to repent because once the dead “sleep” no longer, it will be too “late” for Donne to receive forgiveness from his sins. The word “Here” which begins the hopeful idea of learning to repent, which, according to the promises of God, is the chief component of salvation, is set off both by being an accented syllable preceded by an accented syllable, but also by being the beginning of a new sentence. The last few lines have a notable absence of any hard “k” sounds to reflect the tender effect of God’s grace despite the previously impending judgement.
