A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning
John Donne
John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a'love, so much refin'd
That we ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airey thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as it comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a'love, so much refin'd
That we ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airey thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as it comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
Oh, for the days of poetic devices! the conceit, the metaphor, the old (olde?) english spelling.
Two varieties of love in this poem: of the body or of the mind... of the body lovers need to be physically close to one another, otherwise their affection vanishes.
Donne's love is of the mind - untouched by distance and earthly concerns. Lovers of the mind live in a world of their own making.
The two lovers are like the two points of a compass. One point controls the other, and vice versa... Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show, To move, but doth, if the'other do...
despite time, distance, strife, earth, heaven, death - ultimately the two lovers end where they begin: together.
I've only felt this way about one person.
How many loves do you think someone has in a lifetime?
