“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Introduction

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“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Summary

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Themes

• 

  Love and Distance

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• 

  Physical Love vs. Spiritual Love

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

• Lines 1-4

  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:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-16

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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-28

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 29-32

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-36

  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. 

  

  

  

  

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“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Symbols

• 

  Spheres and circles

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“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Conceit

  

  

  

  

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• Hyperbole

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Diacope

  

  

  

  

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• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Paradox

  

  

  

  

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“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Tear-floods
• Sigh-tempests
• Profanation
• Laity
• Trepidation
• Spheres
• Sublunary
• Elemented
• Refined
• Inter-assured
• Breach
• Compasses
• Hearkens
• Obliquely
• Just

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Speaker

“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

More “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Resources

• External Resources

  • John Donne's Biography — A detailed overview of Donne's life and work, provided by the Poetry Foundation.

  • A Brief Guide to Metaphysical Poets — A short overview and explanation of Metaphysical Poetry, provided by the Academy of American Poets.

  • Ptolemaic Astronomy — A more in-depth explanation of the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, by M.S. Mahoney.

  • Listen to "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" — Audio and text of the poem, provided by the Poetry Foundation.

  • The Reformation — A brief overview of the Protestant Reformation and its effect on Europe leading up to Donne's day.

  • The Enlightenment — An overview of the Enlightenment period in Europe, following the Baroque era in which Donne and his contemporaries wrote.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by John Donne

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  • Air and Angels

  • A Valediction: Of Weeping

  • Elegy V: His Picture

  • Holy Sonnet 10: Death, be not proud

  • Holy Sonnet 14: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

  • Holy Sonnet 1: Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?

  • Holy Sonnet 6: This is my play's last scene

  • Holy Sonnet 7: At the round earth's imagined corners

  • Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness

  • No Man Is an Island

  • Song: Go and catch a falling star

  • The Apparition

  • The Canonization

  • The Dream

  • The Ecstasy

  • The Flea

  • The Good-Morrow

  • The Relic

  • The Sun Rising

  • The Triple Fool

  • To His Mistress Going to Bed