Poetry: John Donne

THE GOOD-MORROW.
by John Donne


I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear ;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west ?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

John Donne: Poem analysis » The Good-morrow » Commentary on The Good-morrow

The Good-morrow is one of Donne's happy love songs, celebrating the joys of a completely unified love. We can compare it, therefore, with The Sunne Rising . If the lovers are so unchanging in their love, they will achieve immortality, since only what changes, dies. The poem is driven by a central image: that the two lovers make up a complete world. Nothing really exists outside of their world; it is self-sufficient, self-absorbing.
The first stanza
The first stanza of the poem is where the speaker, who is one of the lovers talking to his partner, looks back to when they were not in love. That time seems unreal. They were children, naïve, asleep even. Whatever pleasures they experienced were mere unrealities (‘fancies’) compared to what they have now. Any beauty (we presume any female beauty) was, again, a mere dream to be set against the present intense and concrete reality.
The second stanza
The second stanza of the poem suggests that the lovers have woken now into true reality, out of the shadows of night. In fact, they make their own reality. The room where they are in bed is their world, and nothing exists outside its walls. Yes, the poet says, there may be worlds out there: let discoverers go and find them or map-makers draw them, but let us use our time possessing our own private world.
The third stanza
One complete world suggests that each is a hemisphere perfectly complementing the other. The poet concludes by suggesting that if they can stay totally constant as lovers, then they cannot die, since, according to current thinking, only what is contrary or of different measure can disintegrate. A perfect harmony or completeness will be theirs.
Imagery and symbolism in The Good-morrow
As is usual with a Donne poem, the argument in The Good-morrow is carried on through the images or conceits used. So there is a density of imagery, and we have to pick out the central one first. This is clearly the image at the centre of the poem, the microcosmic one, in l.11:
And makes one little roome, an every where.
Map imagery
The geographical images in the poem are straightforward. Donne lived in an age of sea voyages undertaken in order to discover new lands. Map-makers were kept busy drawing routes or making globes on which the maps were fastened. These have some validity for others, but not for the lovers. The geographical imagery is extended into the points of the compass (l.18):
• North symbolises bitterness and discord
• West symbolises dying
The lovers’ world does not contain these directions. This is Donne's conceit. It is based on hyperbole – taking an idea to its limit so it becomes an outrageous exaggeration.
Other images
Some of the other images are more complicated.
• The idea of one lover being reflected in the other's eyes is an important one (ll.15, 16). Donne combines this with the preceding image of globes.
• Then he extends this to the fact that ‘plain hearts’, by which he means honest hearts, show also in the faces of the lovers. There is no pretence, which is why there is no fear (l.9). ‘Perfect love casts out fear’ says the Bible (1 John 4:18), and this is echoed here.
Donne often uses almost religious language in his love poems.
• Christian belief states that only God is unchanging James 1:17, but here on earth, the place where everything is supposed to change, the poet is supposing they can defy this in their godlike love (ll.20-21).
The first stanza contains several interesting images:
• babies at the breast and being weaned, suggesting the immaturity of their previous emotional life
• the ‘seven sleepers’, an allusion to a legend which tells how seven young Christian men from Ephesus hid in a cave during a persecution. The cave was sealed up, but the young men fell asleep for several centuries – a sort of Rip van Winkle fable
Language and tone in The Good-morrow
Dramatic
Donne's poetry is typically dramatic. One good way of seeing this is to look at the beginning of each poem. In The Good-morrow the ‘I’ voice jumps out and hits us with a question to which he demands an answer, even though the question posed is a semi-rhetorical question - the other person is never allowed a minute to reply!
This is in great contrast to the much softer second stanza. It starts off with a note of restrained triumph and finishes with a persuasive plea to enjoy their world. There are no questions any more.
Doubt
The poem seems to end on a note of some doubt: ‘If … or ... ’. Perhaps after all Donne cannot any longer keep up the conceit that nothing will come to change their love or intrude upon it.