John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

Included in the Seagull Reader

Text on p. 1244 of the full Ninth Edition and p. 985 of the shorter Ninth Edition.






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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 laity our love.

Moving of the 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 refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed 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 that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Reading Questions

1. Think about the poem's scenario—one lover is speaking to the other, whom he must leave soon. What do you think the poet (who may or may not be Donne) is saying to his lover (who may or may not be Anne More Donne) about their relationship?

2. To understand this poem, you must look closely at its images and structure. Find the periods and semicolons; then paraphrase each clause the best you can. Look closely at its image and structure. Try to visualize the compass in the final three stanzas and think about how it works.

3. Mark any parts of the poem that you find confusing at this point.

 



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