Donne on Long-Distance Love

Karen Rappaport (karenr@tiac.net)
Sat, 14 Oct 1995 22:43:53 +0100

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
(written by John Donne to his wife in 1611, while he was travelling)

As virtuous men passe mildly away, And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say, The breath goes now, and some say, no.

So let us melt, and make no noise, No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T'were prophanation of our joyes To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th'earth brings harmes and feares, Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares, Though greater farre, is innocent.

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

But we by a love, so much refin'd, That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind, Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

Out two soules therefore, which are one, Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other doe.

And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it, And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must Like th'other foot, obliquely runne.
Thy firmnes makes my circle just, And makes me end, where I begunne.

(The Complete Poetry of John Donne, John T. Shawcross, ed. Anchor Books,
Doubleday & Co.)