A VALEDICTION, FORBIDDING MOURNING

The title of the poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, a valediction is a farewell message. Since the title forbids his wife from sorrowing over their separation.

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;

In the first stanza Donne explains to the reader the separation of body and soul.they discuss the way virtuous men die Virtuous men have lived in a way that makes their death welcomed rather than feared. Because people believed that if you follow the religious rules you will get the paradise.

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, or sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity of our love.

Then he compares the separation of the lovers to the separation of virtuous dying men quietly with their soul, which makes no noise. "Tear floods" and "sigh-tempests are hyperboles (figures of speech involving exaggeration) . Donne is making fun at the idea that one could cry sufficient to cause a flood or sigh so much that the can cause a storm. He makes a distinction between true lovers    and ordinary lovers, which love is dependent only on the physical qualities and not the spiritual ones, which is more important.

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.

The metaphors of earthquakes an

d celestial spheres, make  the readers understand the lovers relationship by magnifying the love.However, a earthquake is minuscule compared to movement of the heavenly spheres, which ordinary people see as innocent. the contrast between the magnitude of earthquakes and celestial trepidation is linked to the love between two bodies and two souls. The love between souls is greater than love between bodies but the first one is also less showy.

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

 The assonance of short "u" sounds in each word of the first line reinforces the concept of stupidity of earthly lovers because their love depends on physical sensation.