Donne Proving He D Still Creep On Women Even If He Were Dead

The Ghost Creeper:
John Donne Proving He’d Still Creep On Women Even If He Were Dead
The Apparition is a highly melodramatic poem Donne uses to explore the emotions of a jilted lover. The meter of the poem adds interest as it does not remain constant. It begins with a pentameter line followed by a trimeter, pentameter, tetrameter, pentameter, pentameter, pentameter, diameter, tetrameter, pentameter, pentameter, trimeter, pentameter, pentameter, pentameter, and finally ends on a hexameter line. The Rhyme scheme is divided up by lines. The first five lines are A, B, B, A, B. Lines six through ten are C,D,C,D,C. The next section, lines eleven through fourteen are E,F,F,E. Finally the poet ends with a rhyming triplet on lines fifteen through seventeen. Another interesting aspect to the poem is that it is told in future tense instead of the present adding more drama to the words of the speaker as
When he arrives, the woman senses his presence, not only by the eerie feel he gives the room, but by the “sicke taper [beginning] to winke”(6). His presence frightens her, so she attempts to awaken the man in her bed. However, the man thinks she is attempting to wake him to have sex with her again, so he shrugs her off by pretending to continue sleeping. The fear of the unearthly atmosphere causes a great deal of stress for the woman. Donne describes how this will affect her composure by saying “…poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou/Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye”(11-12). Donne’s clever sense of humor is reflected in these lines as “quicksilver sweat” not only refers to her sweating out of uneasiness but also refers to her being covered in liquid mercury, which at the time was thought to cure