Attempt a critical appreciation of John Donne’s "A Hymn to God the Father".Donne’s A Hymn to God the Father

One of Donne's last works, written in 1623, "A Hymn to God
the Father" is all-embracing in its religious feeling. From its opening reference to
original sin - "that sin where I begun,/Which was my sin, though it were done before..."
- to its final words of acceptance - "I fear no more" - the poem narrates the sin, the
repentance, the forgiveness, and the struggle for holiness of John Donne and of many
others.

The poem's salient characteristic - both in form
and thought - is its circularity. In the poem Donne describes his life as a kind of
anti-creative movement: Sinful thoughts beget sinful words which beget sinful deeds,
which in turn give rise to more sinful thoughts. The poet's self-absorbed round of
sin is signalled in the text by the coda of "For I have more" appearing at the end of
both the first and second stanzas. However, if the poet's life revolves in the dreary
circularity of sin, the merciful God must follow in circles,
too:

"But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy
Son
    Shall shine as he shines now..."

Punning,
but at the same time ardently serious, Donne looks forward with longing to his last day
when the Son of God rises upon the poet in a definitive new day of forgiveness where
fear of punishment for sin is "no more".