Editing Valediction: A Forbidding Mourning, by John Donne

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“Valediction:  A Forbidding Mourning”<br><br>

As virtuous men passe mildly away,<br>
And whisper to their soules to go,<br>
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,<br>
The breath goes now, and some say no:<br><br>

So let us melt, and make no noise’&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  05<br>
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,<br>
’Twere prophanation of our joyes<br>
To tell the layetie our love.<br><br>

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and feares,<br>
Men reckon what it did and meant;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  10<br>
But trepidation of the spheares,<br>
Though greater farre, is innocent.<br><br>

Dull sublunary lovers love<br>
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit<br>
Absence, because it doth remove&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  15<br>
Those things which elemented it.<br><br>

But we by a love, so much refin’d,<br>
That our selves know not what it is,<br>
Inter-assured of the mind,<br>
Care lesse eyes, lips and hands to misse.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  20<br><br>

Our two soules therefore, which are one,<br>
Though I must goe, endure yet not<br>
A breach, but an expansion,<br>
Like gold, to ayery thinness beate.<br><br>

If they be two, they are two so&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;25<br>
As stiffe twin compasses are two,<br>
Thy soule, the fixt foot, makes no show<br>
To move, but doth, if th’other doe.<br><br>

And though it in the center sit,<br>
Yet, when the other far doth rome,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  30<br>
It leans and hearkens after it,<br>
And growes erect, as that comes home.<br><br>

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must<br>
Like th’other foot, obliquely runne;<br>
Thy firmnes makes my circle just,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  35<br>
And makes me end, where I begunne.<br><br><br>

From: The Wordsworth Poetry Library, The Works of John Donne, with an Introduction and Bibliography (pp. 33-34). <br><br> 

Copyright© Wordsworth Editions Ltd. 1994, ISBN 1-85326-400-8<br><br>

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