Lecture6The17thCenturyLiteratureMetaphysicalpoetryJohn.pptVIP

3.7. 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 fixd 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. 3.7.1. Summery of the poem The poem tenderly comforts the speakers lover at their temporary parting, asking that they separate calmly and quietly, without tears or protests. The speaker justifies the desirability of such calmness by developing the ways in which the two share a holy love, both sexual and spiritual in nature. He argues that because of the confidence their love gives them, they are strong enough to endure a temporary separation. In fact, he discovers ways of suggesting, through metaphysical co