Of the Progress of the Soul: the Second Annivers

Name: Of the Progress of the Soul: the Second Anniversary
Author: John Donne

The poem mourns and celebrates an “immortal maid” whose soul has left the mortal world for heaven. It begins by addressing Joseph Hall, whose spirit follows the departed virgin through poetic praise, and urges him to keep his verse elevated toward God, since praise of divine powers best honours blessed souls. The speaker reflects that, though a year has passed since the maiden’s death, the world continues only like a ship moving after its sails are struck or a beheaded body showing residual motions. Her departure has revealed the world as a decaying carcass, yet the speaker vows that his life will consist in praising her, so that his hymns may preserve goodness against the world’s vice and produce future generations of praise. He commands his own soul to forget the corrupt world and to look upward, congratulating rather than lamenting the maiden’s blessed state. She had made the world seem living and fitting by her presence; virtue and religious devotion governed her desires. Her beauty, moral balance, learning, and goodness are presented as extraordinary, but death nevertheless had to open the way to heaven. The speaker teaches his soul to regard death without fear: the deathbed loosens the soul from its bodily pack, fever becomes medicine, the knell summons one to the triumphant church, sins may be returned to Satan, burial is only a brief sleep, and bodily decay frees the soul. Human life in the body is described as imprisonment, ignorance, weakness, and contamination by original sin. Death breaks the shell, hatches the soul, and allows it to pass instantly beyond earth, air, planets, and the firmament into heaven. The maiden’s body had seemed so rich and beautiful that a soul might gladly remain in it, yet she has left it and rebukes those who crawl slowly through earthly confinement. The speaker contrasts earthly ignorance with heavenly knowledge. Humans do not understand their own bodies or even common natural things, and waste effort on trivial disputes and histories; in heaven, the soul will know what concerns it and forget what does not. The maiden, already deeply learned and practiced in good, has gone to enjoy full perfection and serves as the best book and example for those left behind. The soul is urged to rise toward the company of angels, the blessed mother-maid, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and virgins. Among them the maiden has brought new dignity. On earth she was like a sovereign state and a church: reason corrected her will, beauty and chastity were united, she conquered pride, pardoned others, gave worth to actions, and remained protected from Satan’s officers. Her presence in heaven should make others strive more eagerly toward it. The poem distinguishes essential joy from accidental or worldly joy. Beauty changes, honour depends on unstable human opinion, and worldly happiness cannot provide a lasting foundation. True and undiminished joy is the full sight of God, who is both the object of knowledge and the power by which He is known. The maiden possessed such joy on earth through continual devotion, faithful confidence, and an inwardly preserved image of God; she was betrothed to God here and is married to Him in heaven. In heaven, unlike on earth, accidental joys also endure: souls continually rejoice in their arrival, and the approaching resurrection promises further increase without loss. The maiden, whose goodness and embodied perfection resist comparison, has gone where she both receives and gives addition. The speaker refuses to invoke her as a saint in place of God, insisting that both her exemplary life and his power to praise her come from God’s authority. She is the proclamation of divine purpose, while he is only the trumpet that announces it.

By John Donne · First published 1612 · Genre: Elegy, Metaphysical Poetry, Religious/Spiritual Poetry · 7,142 words

First lines

Two souls move here, and mine, a third, must move / Paces of admiration and of love. / Thy soul, dear virgin, whose this tribute is, / Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss / And yet moves still, and still aspires to see / The world's last day, thy glory's full degree, / Like as those stars which thou o'erlookest far, / Are in their place, and yet still movèd are. / No soul-whiles with the luggage of this clay / It clogged is-Scan follow thee halfway; / Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo / So fast, as now the lightning moves but slow. / But now thou art as high in heaven flown / As heavens from us, what soul besides thine own / Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate / Thy glorious journals in that blessed state? / I envy thee, rich soul, I envy thee, / Although I cannot yet thy glory see. / And thou, great spirit, which hers followed hast / So fast, as none can follow thine so fast; / So far, as none can follow thine so far / -And if this flesh did not the passage bar, / Hadst caught her-let me wonder at thy flight, / Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight, / And now makest proud the better eyes, that they / Can see thee lessened in thine airy way. / So while thou makest her soul by progress known, / Thou makest a noble progress of thine own, / From this world's carcase having mounted high / To that pure life of immortality; / Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise / That more may not beseem a creature's praise, / Yet still thou vow'st her more, and every year / Makest a new progress, while thou wanderest here, / Still upward mount; and let thy Maker's praise / Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays. / And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds, / Oh, let her never stoop below the clouds; / And if those glorious sainted souls may know / Or what we do, or what we sing below, / Those acts, those songs shall still content them best / Which praise those awful Powers that make them blest.

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Of the Progress of the Soul: the Second Anniversary is listed on Textopian as a poem by John Donne, dated 1612 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: John Donne
Date: 1612 CE
Language: English
Genres: Elegy, Metaphysical Poetry, Religious/Spiritual Poetry, Meditative Poetry, Panegyric/Commemorative Poetry
Length: 7,142 words
Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Elegy — Primary function as a commemorative poem mourning Elizabeth Drury's death one year after passing, structured around the persona's grief and celebration of the deceased's virtues and spiritual elevation.
Metaphysical Poetry — Exhibits characteristic Metaphysical conceits and complex figurative language with philosophical paradoxes; employs elaborate extended metaphors (ship striking sail, beheaded man, etc.) typical of Donne's intellectual style.
Religious/Spiritual Poetry — Dominated by theological content exploring heaven, divine grace, God's presence, immortality of the soul, and spiritual hierarchy; presents death as passage to blessed eternal state and communion with divine.
Meditative Poetry — Structured as sustained meditation with repeated imperative 'Think' statements directing the soul through contemplation of death, heaven, virtue, and divine truth; follows meditative practice tradition.