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Summary and Analysis of A Valediction of Weeping by John Donne

He was the son of a wealthy iron merchant, born in London in 1572. He came from a very
influential family background. On his father’s side he came from an old Welsh family and on his
mother’s side from the Heywoods and Sir Thomas More’s family. He was educated at his home
till he was eleven, and later sent to Oxford, and at fourteen to Cambridge. But he could not
continue his education due to his family’s inclination towards Romantic Catholicism. While he
was studying law at Lincoln’s Inn, he gave up his Catholicism and called himself simply
Christian. He travelled to Rome and Italy and upon his return to England was appointed secretary
to the Earl of Ellesmere. His career was terminated when he fell in love and married the Earl’s
young niece, Anne More. After years of poverty and hardships, the young lovers were forgiven
by Sir George More. He also presented his daughter with an allowance of £800. With his
“Pseudo Martyr” he gained the favour of James I and in 1619, he was sent on a diplomatic
mission to Germany with Lord Doncaster. Later he was appointed as Dean of St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London and reached his peak of popularity. He died in 1631 at Essex and is buried
in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Donne’s poetry is categorised as Metaphysical Poetry. A school of poetry according to Dryden

which “affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature
only should reign; and perplexes the mind the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of
philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softness of love.”
His poetry is witty and engages the reader’s intellectually. His knowledge and learning are
reflected in his poems through his abundant use on ‘conceits’.

The poem “A Valediction of Weeping” was most probably written by Donne after he met Anne
More. There are subtle hints which could make us assume that the poem is autobiographical. But
one could not be so sure when it comes to Donne’s poetry. Certainly, he has used
autobiographical elements, but they are very cunningly and wittily enclosed within the veils of
wit and imagination.

Theme:

The theme of the poem is the departure of the poet for a voyage. The poem expresses intense
misery on part of the lovers caused by the parting.

Summary and analysis:

The poem denotes the grief of separation. The poet is about to go on a voyage and he is trying to
console his beloved. He consoles her by saying that she should not weep, as her sighs will result
in the death of other. He asks her to be calm so that he can have a safe voyage and return safely.

The first stanza begins with the lover’s proclamation of sorrow towards his beloved:

Let me pour forth

My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.

In the above lines the poet is not asking for any physical connection with his beloved, instead he
seeks to reflect and be reflected by his beloved—implying the concept of being inseparable. He
appears to be saying that the tears if they fall will be rendered useless and hence by the reference
to ‘coins’ and ‘stamp’ he might be indicating that by procuring them he could keep her happy.

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Hence, his voyage is unavoidable. There is conceit in the line “Fruits of much grief they are,
emblems of more”; the tears are being compared to fruits which will bring no happiness, and will
only ripen into sorrows. In the last two lines of the stanza, the conceit is implied between the
beloved’s tears and the sea water. As both the tears and the sea water are salty in nature, her tears
symbolically refer to the impending separation between them. In these two lines there is a
reference to ‘fall’ the ‘fall’ might imply two things, that when her tears fall, he is separated from
her and also upon his leaving she might ‘fall’, i.e., become unfaithful. In a very apprehensive
tone he appears to be implying that when set apart on “diverse shores” they will mean nothing.

The next stanza introduces a new metaphor:

On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Africa, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

The poet brings in the concept that like all the continents are put together by a workman to create
a perfect globe, the lovers together form a perfect conjugal globe. “The poem uses the figure of a
world contained in a reflection, and in each case great stress is put on the metaphysical nature of
that containment: the physical object is captured in a reflection, but so is the object’s essence.”
Just like a sphere is empty without the maps, and becomes “all” only after the maps are engraved
upon it; in a similar manner, the tears also become “all” only when the lover’s face is reflected in
it. In the last two lines:

Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow

This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

The poet implies that through their tears the lovers are continuously building and destroying their
world. That is to imply a continuous process of endless creation and endless destruction.

Just after this the poet compares the beloved to the moon, the source of energy which controls
the tidal waves:
O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,
Whoe’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death.

She is described as being “more than moon”, and thus possesses more power over the waves.
The poet tells her that if she keeps on weeping, the sphere which comprises of him also will be
drowned in her tears as he is a part of her and vice versa. He requests her not to drown him in her
tears and give the sea its lease to wreck havoc upon him and also give the wind an example. Thus
he implies that her bewailing will only bring death closer to him and take him away from her.

The last two lines present a paradox:

Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,

Whoe’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death.

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Breathing which is considered a source of life becomes a source of death, when it comes in the
form of sighs from the lover. Thus, like the metaphor of tears drowning his reflection, her sighs
appear to be taking away his life-breath.

Like most of Donne’s metaphysical poems, this too plays around with different variations of
conceits; complicated metaphors are drawn in to bring in symbolic implications of the emotional
harm brought upon by the tears. The tone of the poem is colloquial and appears to be
conversational, as if a silent listener is present before the poet.

Though the poet does not use any sexual imagery in the poem but the importance of being united
in soul is established throughout the poem. According to Empson the poem was written
during his first voyage with Essex, which he said he undertook to escape from “the queasy pain
of loving and being loved”.

Works Cited:

THEMES IN VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING

Separation
The main theme is that of separation. There are two facets of
this:

 Is the worth of the lovers' unity shattered by separation

so that they are worthless, false on their own? Is this
what absence does – devalues us?
 Is the metaphysics of leave-taking, whilst natural, also
unnatural since it could hasten the death, or non-entity,
of the other? He argues this much more fully in A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.

Unity
Implicit in the theme of separation is that of the nature and
completeness of the lovers' world. Even in their weeping, their
tears mingle and form a unity – but it is a destructive unity.
Her grief deluges and drowns him. Donne has no answer for this
in the poem.

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