John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

Included in the Seagull Reader

Text on p. 1244 of the full Ninth Edition

An audio reading of the poem.

Pay particular attention to italicized words:






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35

As virtuous men pass mildly away, [1]
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; [2]
'Twere profanation of our joys [3]
To tell the laity our love. [4]

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres, [5]
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love [6]
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined [7]
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind, [8]
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, [9]
Like gold to airy thinness beat. [10]

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two: [11]
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; [12]
Thy firmness makes my circle just, [13]
And makes me end where I begun. [14]

Re-Reading Questions

Note: Some of these questions require extensive answers to explore them fully. Therefore, you may either use some as brief prompts for your own thinking about the piece after reading the study materials or explore them in a paper.

1. Look carefully at the progression of the poem's argument by paying special attention to the bold italicized words. Trace it out. Do you think the lady would be convinced?

2. Consider the numerous metaphors in the poem marked by italics and what each (including the extended compass metaphor) adds to the argument. Look at how Donne manages to deal with the paradox of union in separation by talking about other opposites (death and love, the spiritual and the physical).

3. Mark the meter in the poem, looking for variations from the iambic rhythm. Consider how the metrical emphasis affects the way the poem is read and understood.

 



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