This week, Emily Carman shares a poem with us by John Donne...
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," 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 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
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd 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 aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre 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 th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
John Donne was born in 1572 into a wealthy Catholic family, and was educated at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn. In 1601, he secretly married Anne More, a decision which caused his father to imprison him for several weeks. After obtaining a Doctorate of Divinity from Cambridge, he was appointed dean of St. Paul’s in London, a position he held until his death in 1631. He is best known for his later sermons, as well as his poetry.
I was given the seemingly tedious task of memorizing this poem for a class, but oddly enough it turned out to be a pleasurable experience. I can still recite the poem because it is one of those beautifully crafted pieces that stays with you. Although the title suggests that it is about death, scholars believe that it was most likely written for his wife Anne before he went abroad. Donne’s use of metaphor to illustrate why his absence should not be lamented is incredibly romantic and moving. The lovers’ souls are united, so they are not subject to the same limitations as others.
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