Where can we find two better hemispheres without sharp north, without declining west

Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject. His poems are published online and in print.

John Donne

'The Good-Morrow' is one of Donne's metaphysical love poems, specifically an aubade, a morning love poem or song. It is one of many secular poems he wrote, contrasting heavily with his later sacred works.

It was first published in 1633, a little after the poet's death but was probably written when he was a young man and recently married.

It is a three-stanza poem with a deceptively simple opening. In the first stanza, the speaker is asking a conversational question to another person, a lover, about what they did till we loved?

In typical Donne fashion, it takes the reader right into the bedroom, which is the crucible of passion and thought.

The two lovers are waking up first thing in the morning. The speaker wants to examine the state of their relationship and so asks more questions, reflecting on this time prior to their loving, pleasure and beauty, and alluding to historical events.

This inspires further explanation in the next two stanzas. The poem:

• Implies that the love the two share is like a new religion (allusion to the Seven Sleepers, persecuted Christian youths sealed up in a cave who woke after nearly two centuries to find Christianity had spread).
• Progresses into a series of images that relate to travel, the world and cartography (map making), an extended argument for the unity of their love.
• Uses these metaphors to relate to exploration, discovery and conquest.

The language is plain enough but it is wrapped up in quite a complex syntax (the way clauses and grammar work together) which has to be carefully navigated by the reader.

• This method of expanding a reasoned argument using strong imagery and metaphor to effectively control emotions and feelings has been given the label of a metaphysical conceit, making Donne the prime mover of what has become known as the metaphysical school.

John Donne is now considered the master of conceit, a figure of speech that relies on metaphor and imaginative contrasts to argue a point. In this poem, he uses it to articulate his feelings about love and the relationship he's in.

He wrote many love poems when a young man, covering a range of emotions and passions. According to author Adam J. Smith in John Donne, Essays in Celebration, Methuen, 1972, these poems:

construct and elucidate desire, affection, fondness, closeness, tenderness, certainty, loving identification, yearnings, grief, scorn, contempt, loathing, hostility, frustration, jealousy, spite, revulsion, delight, excitement, bliss, rest (Smith 1972: 73).

For Donne, love is heat, fire, growth, unity, alchemy - a living organism - and in his love poems he sought to intellectually express his passion by using all manner of images and metaphors.

T.S. Eliot in his own inimitable manner called this process a 'dissociation of sensibility' in which emotional sensitivity is expressed in logically understandable ways - fresh images creating new perspectives.

• The Good-Morrow employs images of a little room, sea-discoverers, maps, worlds, eyes, faces, hemispheres, North and West.
• The language/diction used is simple enough - Donne's creative use of syntax and employment of parallel lines of persuasion make for fascinating reading, add to the meaning and help deepen understanding.

'The Good-Morrow'

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked 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 mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.