(We discuss metaphysical poetry in more detail here.)Īnd Donne’s metaphors are clever. And ‘The Sun Rising’ is a love poem, in which Donne praises his lover, claiming she outstrips all princes and kings in the world, and all the riches to be found in the East and West. It was Samuel Johnson who dubbed John Donne and his successors ‘Metaphysical poets’: poets who often use extended metaphors in their work, sometimes drawn from contemporary scientific and philosophical ideas, to explore familiar themes such as love. Or, as that latter-day poet, Morrissey, once put it in a classic modern love song, ‘Hand in glove, the sun shines out of our behinds’. But the central meaning of ‘The Sun Rising’ is similar to the meaning of ‘The Good-Morrow’, another classic Donne poem: my beloved and I are so in love that the rest of the world is but a poor show compared with us. Eliot, a great admirer of Donne’s poetry, Donne can make a single image or phrase resonate with half a dozen meanings. The above paraphrase or summary of the content of ‘The Sun Rising’ is necessarily longer than the poem itself, which shows just how much Donne packs into a relatively short poem. This bed on which we lie is the centre of the world, and the walls of this bedroom are the edges of the world’s sphere.’ Shine here, and you shine on everything (or everything that matters). You’re getting old, and since it’s your job to warm the world, you’ve done your job once you’ve warmed us, because, as I say, we are the world. my beloved and I are the world, and sorry, Sun – we’re spoken for). ‘And you, Sun, are only half as happy as we are, in that the world, your natural partner, is already promised to another (i.e. Princes are mere shadows of my beloved and me: next to our love, all honour is a sham, all wealth is like alchemy, a vain attempt to create riches from base metals. Nothing else exists that is worth our attention. ‘My lover is all states and all princes of the world rolled into one – oh yes. This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere To warm the world, that’s done in warming us. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
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