John Donne

The Sunne Rising

  • Written about a morning Donne spent in bed alongside a woman he had just spent the night with. In the morning, when the sun rises, Donne wishes it would just go and bother someone else, as he has all he wants with him.

  • Rhyming scheme: ABBACDCDEE

  • Variation of the aubade.

Themes; Love

Quotes:

  • ‘Busy old fool, unruly sun, who doest thou thus, through windows and through curtains call on us?’ - Donne portrays the sun as a nosy old busy body, sticking its nose in places it doesn’t belong.

  • ‘Go chide late schoolboys and sour prentices, go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride’ - Donne tells the sun many other people in this world need a wake up call, him and his lover do not.

  • ‘I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, bu that I would not lose her sight so long if her eyes have not blinded thine’ - Donne tells the sun he has no power, as all he has to do is close his eyes and it will cease to exist. Also, that his lover could outshine the sun any day.

  • ‘She’s all states and all princes I. Nothing else is.’ - the pair of them are the most important people in the world right now.

  • ‘Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; this bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere’ - nothing else exists outside of their bed, so the sun might as well just circle it instead of the whole world.

Song: Go and catch a falling star

  • Written by a presumably chastised Donne, warning his fellow men to stay away from women at all costs. He claims that no good looking, honest woman exists, and while they may be one of the other, neither exist together.

  • Rhyming scheme: ABABCCDD

Themes: Sex, seduction

Quotes;

  • ‘Go and catch a falling star, get with child a mandrakes root, tell me where past years are’ - all such things are impossible, yet Donne believes they’re more possible than finding a decent woman

  • ‘Ride ten thousand days and nights, till age snow white hairs on thee, thou, when thou return’st wilt tell me all strange wonders that befell thee’ - Donne wishes to send a man to the ends of the earth and back, who will be full of tales

  • ‘And swear, nowhere, lives a woman true, and fair’ - despite all this mans travels, he will be unable to find an attractive and honest woman

  • ‘If thou findst one, let me know’ - Donne avails of his readers to tell him if they find a good woman

  • ‘Though she were true when you met her, and last, till you write your letter, yet she will be false ere I come, to one, two or three’ - he figures why bother, as in the time it would take him to get there the woman would have already cheated

Song: Sweetest love, I do not go

  • Donne is traveling off on a voyage to far away countries, and wishes to reassure his wife that he will be alright, and she has no need to worry after him.

  • Rhyming scheme: ABABCDDC

Themes: Love

Quotes:

  • ‘Sweetest love, I do not go for weariness of thee’ - Donne wishes to assure his wife that he’s not leaving because he doesn’t love her, rather because he just has to go

  • ‘But believe that I shall make speedier journeys, since I take more wings and spurs than he’ -Donne will travel faster than the sun, his love of his wife will bring him home quickly

  • ‘O how feeble is a man’s power, that if good fortune fall, cannot add another hour, nor a lost hour recall’ - humans have the ability to focus on the bad,m rather than all the good things that have happened

  • ‘When thou sigh’st, though sigh’st not wind, bu sigh’st my soul away. When thou weep’st, unkindly kind, my life’s blood doth decay’ - every time she’s sad over him, she hurts him physically. He urges her to not worry, for his sake

  • ‘Let not they diving heart forethink me any ill’ - Donne tells her not to think too hard about the bad things, as they might indeed happen

  • ‘But think that we are but turn’d aside to sleep: they who keep one another alive, ne’er parted be’ - they turn away to sleep every night, this time is no different

The Dreame

  • In which Donne is having a dream about making love to a woman, when he is suddenly awoken as said woman walks into his chambers. At first, he is excited, believing that the dream is about to become reality, but the woman turns him down. Left alone now in his chambers, Donne is forced to take the matter into his own hands

  • Rhyming scheme: ABBACCDDEE

Themes: Sex and seduction, honour

Quotes:

  • ‘Dear love, for nothing less than thee would I have broken this happy dream’ - he’s not angry that he has been interrupted, as the woman herself was the one who did it

  • ‘My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it: thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice to make dreams truths, and fables histories’ - now that she’s here, they can continue acting out the dream

  • ‘Yet I thought thee (for thou lovest truth) an angel, at first sight’ - he’s attempting to woo her, comparing her to an angel.

  • ‘Coming and staying showed thee, thee, but rising makes me doubt, that now thou art not thou’ - while he thought she was here for fun, she has left. Or maybe, he thinks, she’s just teasing him further

  • ‘That love is weak, where fear’s as strong as he; if mixture it of fear, shame, honour’ - he doubts now that she even loves him, saying that if she truly did, she would stay

  • ‘Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come; then I will dream that hope again, but else would die’ - now that she’s gone, Donne has to finish the dream by himself

The Flea

  • Donne is attempting to lure a virgin into his bed, by convincing her that since a flea has alrteady bitten the pair of them, their bodily fluids have already mixed, so they might as well sleep together

  • He tries (and fails) to convince her not to kill the flea, saying it’s something holy now. In the end, she squishes it, and then he tries to further tempt her

  • Rhyming scheme: AABBCCDDD

Themes: Sex and seduction, honour

Quotes:

  • ‘It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, and in this flea, our two bloods mingled be’ - inside the flea, their fluids have already mixed. They might as well sleep together now

  • ‘Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, where we almost, nay more married are’ - he pleads with her to not kill the flea, as she would be taking three loves at once

  • ‘Let not to that self-murder added be, and sacrilege, three sins in killing three’ - Donne says she’s committing three sins; killing herself (blood in the flea), killing him (blood in the flea), the flea itself and committing sacrilege (as the flea is now their marriage bed)

  • ‘Wherein could this guilty be, except in that drop with it sucked from thee’ - she has killed the flea, and he says it had done nothing wrong

  • ‘‘tis true: then learn ho false, fears be; just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me, will waste as this flea’s death took life from thee’ - she hasn’t been struck down by God for her sins yet, so she might as well commit a 4th and sleep with him