Appendix
Let me give some examples of compass-circle image after Donne. Henry King uses the compass image with that of life as a circle in his Elegy Upon the Most Victorious King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus.
In the seventeenth century the circle is not always complete; some are wandering or irregular, as we see in Thomas Randolph's "To M. Feltham on his booke of Resolves":
In this unconstant Age when all mens minds
In various change strive to outvie the winds.
When no man sets his foot upon the square,
But treads on globes and circles; when we are
The Apes of Fortune, and desire to bee
Resolved on as fickle wheeles as shee.
As if the planets that our rulers are,
Made the soules motion too irregular.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
While foolish men whose reason is their sence,
Still wander in the worlds circumference:
Though holding passions reines with strictest hand
Dost firme and fixed in the Center stand. (1-22)
Katherine Philips (1631-64) is very faithful to Donne's description in one of her poems.
Return to Contents