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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING, by JOHN DONNE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: As virtuous men pass mildly away Last Line: And makes me end, where I begun. Subject(s): Death - Children; Love; Love - Marital; Marriage; Mourning; Death - Babies; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Bereavement | |||
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 a 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 Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we be 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 aery 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 th' other do. And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far do 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HUNGERFIELD by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE MOURNER by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN HECUBA MOURNS by MARILYN NELSON THERE IS NO GOD BUT by AGHA SHAHID ALI IF I COULD MOURN LIKE A MOURNING DOVE by FRANK BIDART A HYMN TO CHRIST, AT THE AUTHOR'S LAST GOING INTO GERMANY by JOHN DONNE |
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