Donne’s Holy Sonnet Five confronts multiple inner spiritual and physical struggles while twisting together the struggles between science and religion. With the author claiming himself as a “little world,” he uses the metaphor to tie together both his physical and the spiritual struggles with evil. The poem then becomes not just a personal piece but a religious political one confronting the new discoveries of the world. Donne’s cunning battle between himself and evil …showed first 75 words of 920 total…

…showed last 75 words of 920 total…He addresses God when he says to let the “lust and envy” flames “retire.” He ends with him telling God to burn him with the “fiery zeal” of God’s house. The zeal echoes the enthusiastic diligence he desires to contain so that he may have constant and earnest exertion of body and mind, of the physical and spiritual, through God’s way because he knows that these are what “heal;” these will save him.