This poem, another member of Donne's "Holy Sonnets," is a spiritual and metaphysical reflection on the Biblical Annunciation, the revelation that Mary would be the mother of Jesus.
The sonnet uses a variety of devices--repetition, polysemy (words with multiple meanings), and striking imagery--to draw the reader into contemplation of the mystery of the event. As in many of Donne's poems, particularly the Holy Sonnets, the author confronts the paradoxical encounter between the divine and the earthly. Whereas Donne's other poems tend to situate the tension between spirit and flesh in Donne's own person, here it appears in a central event in salvation history. Read in the context of Donne's works, the poem suggests that the conflict and complementarity of spirit and flesh emerge at multiple levels: fleeting episodes, lifelong personal experience, and even events of cosmic and historical significance, such as the Annunciation. Donne's poems thus offer an anthropology and cosmology condensed into fourteen-line reflections.