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,                                       5 
    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 ;                              10 
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                                     15 
    The thing which elemented it. 

It is probably about bad and negative moment in somebody’s life, somebody that probably has missed somebody else.

Is a poem about the separation of two lovers, there is one lover that invites the other one not to mourn,: John Donne asks is wife not to cry when he had to leave to go in a trip, he forbids his wife to cry for him. It is a farewell poem structured in an argumentation. The poet believes that separation is a problem for the lovers who are only united by sensual love. Donne and his lady, vice versa , share a love which is also nonphysical but also metaphysical. The union of two souls which cannot be broken but their love is expanded through space just as gold may be beaten very thin without breaking “like gold to aery thinnes beat” this is one of the simile that the poet uses in this poem, but this is a quite simile. In fact, in true metaphysical style, he introduces another more complex simile, surely the most famous of his work.

The two lovers are compared to the connected lungs of a compass: just as they can be pulled for a part but never totally separated, so the two lovers may be physically far from each other, but they will always be spiritually united. The compass lungs, however far apart, will always draw a circle, a symbol of perfect unity. The compass, a common emblem of perfection, from Cesare Ripa’s Econologia, 1625, one of the most popular emblem books in Europe. The circle drawn by the compass corresponds to the ring with the signs of the zodiac.

The poem starts with a simile introduce by “as”. There is an inner dialogue with his soul, the speaking voice invites his lover to melt and not to make noise, no cry because he have to go. He said that they should behave in the same way in which the virtuous man behave.

On the first stanza the poet compares the people who dies without makes noise with virtuous people and invites his woman not to cry while he is leaving. On the third stanza he exploit the image of earth ache. Men try to interpret what it may have meant. During Middle Ages disasters and natural catastrophe were connected to divine punishment for something they have done wrong. The poet underlines how crying out and making noise would be a profanation of their love. Donne considered love an exclusive religion and the people who did not share this concept of love were considered lay-men. People that think that senses are more important than soul cannot accept to be separated because absence takes away the sense which feed love. The moon’s sphere marked the boundary between the perfect and unchangeable world of the higher spaces and sphere and the corruptible earth.

Line 16: love refined like chemical mixture. Since our love is so refined that we ourself are unable the nature of our love and that our soul became one. Love as a whole: mind and body.

The exploit unusual comparison because he brings together aspects that are generally remote from the most common images used in poetry.