Point of View

The poem is written from a first-person perspective. Donne wrote the poem inspired by his own experience of a dangerous sea voyage. He claimed to have composed the poems in the moment, while he was experiencing these events. Therefore, they may depict a literal first-person present-tense experience.

The use of first-person present-tense is generally employed to convey a sense of immediacy. It allows the reader to feel like they are being invited into real events by the person the events are happening to. They therefore generally tend to have a higher set of emotional stakes, and to more thoroughly invite a corresponding emotional response in the reader.

In a poem like this one, which is so highly philosophical, this might seem like a paradoxical choice. Yet the poem’s philosophy is not abstract; it provokes and relies on concrete emotional experiences of uncertainty, confusion, and...