Reflection on Holy Sonnet 10 by John Dunne

 Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die. 
 
    I find reading Dunne's holy sonnets in class very interesting, especially since I myself am a Christian.  Holy sonnet 10 is essentially Dunne insulting "Death" and saying that he fears it not.  I'm not gonna lie, even though I'm a Christian and believe in eternal life and all that, I am still scared out of my mind to die.  Like Ms. Quelch said in class, it is in our nature to be unable to fathom such a thought, that our bodies may cease to exist.  I admire Dunne's faith in his beliefs, and I think that that there is less of today.  In our society where seeing is believing, it becomes harder to think of the eternal rather than the present, which is what Dunne is advising us to do when he wrote this sonnet.  Holy sonnet 10 is a thought-provoking sonnet which delves into a topic that we would rather avoid, and to be honest, I enjoyed it.

My Thoughts on Sonnet 67

Like as a huntsman, after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds, beguiled of their pray,
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the selfsame way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she, beholding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide,
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own goodwill her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled.


Sonnet 67 is very similar to Whoso List To Hunt, by Sir Thomas Wyatt.  It's about a guy who is "hunting" a beautiful doe (the girl, who would have guessed?). This girl is impossible to catch, and Wyatt realizes that the only way he's going to get her is if she lets him. First of all, I don't really know why these Renaissance poets keep trying to be cryptic and call their lover a "doe".  While does are beautiful and delicate, not all girls are like that.  Perhaps Wyatt could have made his sonnet about him being in the jungle hunting for a tiger or something (you get the idea).  As the sonnet ends, and the poet realizes that she's gonna have to let him catch her if he wants her, it's good to see that 500 years after Spenser wrote this sonnet, guys will still chase blindly after girls they can't get. It's happened to me, and I'm sure almost every guy out there... I guess some things never change ;)

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