This is a poem which purports, in many ways, to be about a setting. That is, it is a description of a particular place: of the entire earth. However, much as it is about a particular character (Elizabeth Drury) who is only vaguely described in the poem, the actual "anatomy" of the world is almost entirely abstract. Donne uses many details in his description of the world, but few of them are geographic in nature. Instead, the setting is more experiential than environmental. The world Donne imagines is a theoretical, abstract one that is entirely corrupted, with no hope for anything ever improving. It is really this unrelenting sense of despair in which the poem is set.