In each of the poems the speakers want to be overcome by something. One wants death and one wants life - life without sin. Although Sidney's speaker bribes death and Donne's speaker promises to repay God for his help, it begs the questions: is it likely that both speakers will really pull through? Do they really want what they're asking for? Or do they think that just by pleading, they are perhaps proving something? Or …showed first 75 words of 986 total…

…showed last 75 words of 986 total…the world that is involved in doing evil. He really does want to become a better person and knows that he can only do so if God, the devil's enemy, overthrows him. While on the other hand, Sidney's speaker in fact wants death to overcome him, he pleads death, "O make in me those civil wars to cease," he believes that death brings a peacefulness that can stop all his internal conflict, pain and suffering.