Donne’s “The Apparition” consists of seventeen lines with the rime scheme ABBABCDCDCEFFGGG. Like “The Flea,” it is also a seduction poem, but a rather innovative one. Lovers, through the centuries, have invented all sorts of ploys to try to trick young girls into having sex them. John Donne’s seduction poems reveal some of the most original.
“When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead”
The speaker calls the young woman a murderer for refusing to satisfy his lust. The idea that not relieving his sexual urges will kill a man has been an ignorant superstition since the Renaissance and possibly even earlier. The speaker uses that notion hoping the young woman is gullible enough to buy it here; thus, he calls her a murderer, because he is “dying” to have sex with her.
The urgency of this seduction poem implies that speaker has tried many times to seduce this woman, but thus far, she has managed to resist. He therefore concocts the notion that after she has killed him, he will return at some future point as a ghost and scare her to death.
After his death, she, of course, will at first believe she is “free / From all solicitation from [him].” But he has news for her: the endless “solicitation” is not going to stop anytime soon, even if he has to suffer death at her neglect.
“And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see”
The speaker then calls his target sex object a “feign’d vestal.” He is not castigating for not being a virgin; obviously, he is not invested in her remaining a “virgin.” He is claiming she is a pretending “vestal,” because he doubts she will remain a virgin for thirty years as the Vestal Virgin priestesses of the Roman temples did.
He claims that when he returns as an “apparition,” he will find her sleeping with someone “worse” than he is. He does not make it clear why her new lover will be worse, so the reader must assume that he simply believes he is better for her any other lover would be.
When she sees the ghost, she will be very frightened and try to rouse her sleeping lover, but he will not pay any attention, because she has already worn him out with prior lovemaking, and he will think she is ready to go at it again. This speaker never shrinks from gross accusations.
“And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou”
The speaker then predicts that his love target will become a “poor aspen wretch,” that is, she will turn white with fear, and “Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie.” She will perspire profusely from the fear of the ghost’s visitation.
He then tells her that what he will say to her at the visitation will make her look even more ghostly than he does. He refuses to tell her what he will say, because he does not want to spoil the shock that it will deliver. If he told her now the frightening message he will bring, she could prepare herself for it and would not suffer the fate she deserves for rejecting his advances.
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