Facing death, the speaker asks a raw question: if God made him, will God let his work decay? Everything in him feels fragile and terminal. He feels himself rushing toward death, his pleasures already behind him. He is hemmed in by despair and terror, his body wasting away under the weight of sin that drags him toward hell. There is no escape in any earthly direction. Only when he looks upward to God—if God permits—does he feel a moment of rising, a brief resurrection of hope. But temptation from “our old subtle foe” (the devil) is so constant that he cannot keep himself upright for a single hour. The mood is desperate and urgent, a soul caught between the pull of damnation and the faint possibility of grace. The final couplet sharpens this tension into a plea: let grace give him wings to outpace the tempter, and let God, like a magnet of adamant, draw his hard, unresponsive heart.
Holy Sonnet I: Tho Has Made Me — Summary
Tho has made me, and shall thy work decay? Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste; I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday. I dare not move my dim eyes any way, Despair behind, and death before doth cast Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. Only thou art above, and when towards thee By thy leave I can look, I rise again; But our old subtle foe so tempteth me That not one hour myself I can sustain. Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.