Good-Friday, 1613, Riding Westward by John Donne
The speaker compares the human soul to a sphere whose true motion is devotion, but which is often driven instead by pleasure or business. On Good-Friday, he is physically carried westward while his soul bends eastward toward Christ. He reflects that Christ’s rising and falling on the cross prevented sin from leaving the world in eternal night, yet he is almost relieved not to witness so overwhelming a spectacle. To see God’s face brings death, he reasons, so seeing God die would be still more terrible. He imagines the disturbance caused by Christ’s suffering: Nature shrinks, the earth cracks, and the sun darkens. He asks whether he could bear to see the hands that span the poles and tune the spheres pierced, the divine height humbled beneath humanity, the blood associated with souls turned to dirt, and God’s flesh torn into rags. He also doubts that he could look upon Christ’s distressed Mother, who shared in the sacrifice that ransomed humanity. Though Christ’s suffering is absent from his physical sight, it remains before his memory, while Christ looks toward him from the tree. The speaker says he turns his back only to receive correction. He asks the Saviour to judge him worthy of anger, to punish and purify him, burning away rust and deformity and restoring God’s image in him through grace, so that God may recognize him and he may turn his face toward God.
By John Donne · First published 1613 · Genre: Metaphysical Poetry, Devotional Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 548 words
First lines
Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, / Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is; / And as the other spheres, by being grown / Subject to foreign motion, lose their own, / And being by others hurried every day, / Scarce in a year their natural form obey; / Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit / For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it. / Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west, / This day, when my soul's form bends to the East. / There I should see a Sun by rising set, / And by that setting endless day beget. / But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall, / Sin had eternally benighted all. / Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see / That spectacle of too much weight for me. / Who sees God's face, that is self-life, must die; / What a death were it then to see God die? / It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink, / It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink. / Could I behold those hands, which span the poles / And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes? / Could I behold that endless height, which is / Zenith to us and our antipodes, / Humbled below us? or that blood, which is / The seat of all our souls, if not of His, / Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn / By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn? / If on these things I durst not look, durst I / On His distressed Mother cast mine eye, / Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus / Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us? / Though these things as I ride be from mine eye, / They're present yet unto my memory, / For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me, / O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree. / I turn my back to Thee but to receive / Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave. / O think me worth Thine anger, punish me, / Burn off my rust, and my deformity; / Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace, / That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.
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Good-Friday, 1613, Riding Westward is listed on Textopian as a poem by John Donne, dated 1613 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: John Donne
- Date: 1613 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Metaphysical Poetry, Devotional Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Spiritual Meditation
- Length: 548 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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Similar titles
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- A Hymn To God The Father by John Donne
- A Litany by John Donne
- I Am A Little World Made Cunningly by John Donne
- To The Lady Magdalen Herbert Of St Mary Magdalen by John Donne
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Genres
- Metaphysical Poetry — The poem exemplifies metaphysical wit and conceit through its central extended metaphor of the soul as a sphere subject to foreign motion, combining complex philosophical abstraction with spiritual theology in the manner characteristic of Donne and his school.
- Devotional Poetry — The poem functions as a Good Friday prayer and spiritual meditation, structured as a direct address to Christ with penitential intent, seeking divine correction and grace, establishing the work squarely within the devotional tradition.
- Lyric Poetry — The poem expresses intense personal emotion and introspection, focusing on the speaker's internal spiritual conflict and emotional state rather than narrative action, creating an intimate, subjective voice typical of lyric form.
- Religious Poetry — Christian theology dominates the work, including explicit treatment of Christ's Crucifixion, redemption, sin, divine sacrifice, and the speaker's relationship to salvation, making religious doctrine fundamental to its meaning.
Tags
metaphysical · religious · devotional · introspective · paradox · theological · crucifixion · redemption · sin · repentance · atonement · Christian