Analysis: Forbidding Mourning By John Donne

A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, and usually metaphorical. More often than not poems are written about love. Authors talk deeply about love gone wrong, advice when in love, and the over powering feeling and emotions of being in love. Love is magical, when to people bond physically, mentally, and emotionally, giving all that you are to someone for them to appreciate and love all your flaws and imperfections, that’s beautiful. The poem A Valediciton: Forbidding Mourning written by John Donne is another mind blowing love poem. Linden stated, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is a metaphysical poem by John Donne. Written for his wife Anne before he left on a trip

Towards the end of the poem John Donne writes, “If they be two, they are two so/ As stiff twin compasses are two, / Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show/ To move, but doth, if th’other do.” (Lines 25-28) By describing their souls as being like the two feet of a compass, the speaker makes it clear of the kind of union that characterizes their relationship. “Even when the two feet are apart and separate, they are untited, and this unity is shown in the way that, when the other food ‘far doth roam,’ the food that remains in one place ‘leans, and hearkens after it/ And grows erect, as that comes home.’” (Donne) Even when one is gone and not in the others presence, they still lean and hold each other up. They aren’t physically there, but their souls are united as one making their love even stronger. The overwhelming message of this poem therefore concers a love that is so based in unity and trust that even death cannot separate the two souls of the speaker and his wife. Clearly, the second message in The Valediction: A Forbidding Mourning would be the separation of body and

In this poem it is written to the speakers wife about their love and why he had to leave her. He describes the love they share and how strong their bond really is, and how it can withstand the distance. He explains the relationship between body and soul. That even though they aren’t in each ones presence that doesn’t mean they are not together because they are by their souls. They souls have grown to one, and bound them together. It compares earthquakes to his wife’s pain and sorrow. Saying that the earthly nature is bound to happen, we can’t stop the inevitable which he described his absences as; unavoidable. This is by far one of the greatest love poems ever written. “John Donne has been called the poet of mutual love, he understand loving the body compared to the mind and soul.” (Storer) When the day comes when one falls in love, they can learn a lot from this single poem. About true love that is so strong no distance is long enough to separate the two souls bound to each