Although the subject matter of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” could be applied to any couple pending separation, John Donne wrote his poem for his wife on the eve of his departure for France in 1611. In the poem, the speaker pleads with his lady to accept his departure. The speaker defines and celebrates a love that transcends the physical and can therefore endure and even grow through separation. In arguing against mourning and emotional upheaval, Donne uses a series of bold and unexpected comparisons for the love between the speaker and his lady.
Donne makes his first surprising analogy in the first stanza when he compares the impending separation of the lovers to death. The speaker compares his parting from his lover of the soul from virtuous man at death. According to the speaker, “virtuous men pass mildly away” because the virtue in their lives has assured them of glory and reward in the afterlife; hence, they die in peace without fear and emotion (1). He suggests that the separation of the lovers be like this separation caused by death. In the second stanza the speaker furthers his comparison for a peaceful separation. “So let us melt, and make no noise” refers to the melting of gold by

ld by a goldsmith or alchemist (5). When gold is melted it does not sputter and is therefore quiet. The speaker and his love should not display their private, intimate love as “tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move” (6). The speaker thinks that it would be a “profanation” to reveal the sacred love he shares with his lady (7). It would be similar to priests revealing the mysteries of their faith to “the laity”, that is, to ordinary people (8). The loud display of grief upon separation would therefore desecrate the sacred love the speaker and his lady to the less elevated love of ordinary people.

Donne’s most famous and unusual comparison starts in the seventh stanza and concludes his poem when he compares the love between he and his wife to “stiff twin compasses” (26). The twin compasses are described as two only in the sense that there are two legs joined permanently at the top. Here Donne is referring to the mathematical instrument used in geometry. One leg, “the fixed foot”, is planted firmly in the center (27). The other “travels,” describing a perfect circle, returning to its point of origin. The “fixed foot” of the center foot “leans and harkens” after the other that “far doth roam” (25-30). The speaker explains that the center foot (the person who stays at home) makes sure the absent lover comes back to form a complete circle because of its firmness.

In the sixth stanza, Donne again compar