The Good-Morrow’ by John Donne was published in 1633 in his posthumous collection

Songs and Sonnets. The poem is generally considered to be one of Donne’s first. It has also
been categorized as a sonnet even though it stretches to twenty-one lines rather than the
traditional fourteen. The poem is divided into three sets of seven lines that conform to a
rhyming pattern of ababccc.
This is a very unique pattern of rhyme that is only made more interesting by the varying
pattern of the meter. The majority of the lines contain ten syllables but each stanza ends with
a line of twelve syllables. This variation was likely done to maintain a reader’s engagement
with both the narrative and the text itself.
It is also interesting to note how the stanzas are divided within the seven lines. The first four
lines introduce something about the speaker’s love. While the next three reflect more deeply
on the topic and sometimes provide an answer to a previously posed question.
Summary
The Good-Morrow’ by John Donne is a sonnet that describes the state of perfect love in
which a speaker and his lover exist.
The poem begins with the speaker noting how his life, and his lover’s, did not truly begin
until they met. Up until they came together they were like children suckling from their
mother’s breasts. He knows now that any pleasure he has previously was fake. His current
love is the only real thing he has ever experienced.
In the next stanza, he describes how there is no way for their love to fail because it controls
everything he sees. His whole life is driven by it, therefore he has no reason to want anything
outside of their small bedroom. The poem concludes with the speaker stating that their love is
balanced like a healthy body. Their emotional and physical states are connected so deeply
that nothing can go wrong.

Analysis of The Good-Morrow

Stanza One
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.
In the first stanza of ‘The Good-Morrow’, the speaker begins with three questions. They all
inquire into the state of his and his lover’s lives before they were known to one another. He
wonders allowed, addressing his lover, what “by my troth” (or what in the world) they did
before they loved. This question and those which follow are rhetorical. He does not expect a
real answer.
In the next line, he asks if they were “not weaned till then.” He does not believe the two were
truly adults, separated from their mother’s milk until they met. Their lives did not begin until
they gave up “country pleasures.” They became more sophisticated and less dependent on
childish pleasures.
In the fourth line, he asks if they were sleeping like the “Seven Sleepers.” This is a reference
to a story regarding seven children buried alive by a Roman emperor. Rather than dying, they
slept through their long entombment to be found almost 200 years later. It is like the speaker
has his lover were in stasis until they could be unearthed at the proper time and brought
together.
The final three lines of the stanza answer his previous questions. He says, yes, of course,
everything he said is the truth. Anything he experienced before getting with this current lover
was not real. It was only a fancy.

Stanza Two
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.
The second stanza is structured in a similar way in which the first four lines introduce a
reader to another aspect of the relationship. He describes how now, in their “good-morrow’
they will live in happiness together. There will be no need to “watch…one anther out of
fear.” Their relationship is perfect.
In the following lines, the speaker is proving that any temptation outside is worthless. His
eyes are controlled by love, therefore everything he sees is transformed by his adoration. He
speaks of a small room that contains everything on earth. There is no reason for him to leave
the bedroom he shares with his lover.
The next three lines make use of anaphora with the repetition of the starting word “Let.” The
speaker is telling his lover that now that he has this relationship the rest of the world means
nothing. The explorers can go out and claim anything and everything they want to. He will be
happy to “possess one world” in which they have one another.

Stanza Three
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.
The final stanza of ‘The Good-Morrow’ begins with the speaker looking into his lover’s eyes.
There he can see his own face and he knows her face appears in his eyes as well. Their
heartfelt connection is evident within their faces.
The next lines continue to refer to their bodies/ Donne makes use of conceit, one of the
techniques for which he is the best know. In this case, he is comparing their faces to two
hemispheres. Unlike the hemispheres of the actual world, their facial hemispheres are perfect.
There are no “two better” in the universe. There is no “sharp north” or “declining west.”
Donne’s speaker sees himself and his lover as soulmates, they are the other’s missing half.
The last three lines speak on how a lack of balance can cause death. This is likely a reference
to the medieval science of humors in which one’s health was determined by an equal mix of
blood, bile, etc. He uses this metaphor to make clear that their love is balanced physically
and emotionally. Their perfect balance is accomplished due simply to the presence of the
other. It is the combination of their emotions that keeps them together.

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 the 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 image and
metaphor.
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.

Analysis of The Good-Morrow Stanza by Stanza

Stanza 1

Knowing that the title means good morning (Good-Morrow is archaic, an old fashioned way
of greeting someone. Donne liked to join some of his words with a hyphen) the reader has a
clue that the scene is set early in the day.

The first line takes the reader into the mind of the first person speaker, who is either asking
himself or his lover a puzzling question. Note the language, it's 17th century English, so thou
means you and by my troth means in all honesty or truth.
The first line runs on into the second (enjambment) and the caesurae (pauses caused by
punctuation) ensure that the reader cannot go too quickly through these words. This is a
carefully phrased question.

And that small phrase Did, till we loved? is important because it gives sense to the previous
line and sets the poem off proper. Just what kind of existence did the pair have before they
became lovers, before they fell in love?

It's a question many lovers have asked because when two become firmly entrenched in love
it's as if the time previous to their meeting holds no value. They never lived, they didn't do
anything meaningful.

Were we not weaned till then? To be weaned is to be influenced from an early age; to be a
baby or an infant gradually given adult food whilst coming off a diet of mother's milk. The
speaker is implying that they were infants before they loved.
The third line reinforces this sense of childish existence the two had to go through. The
country pleasures are either crude sensualities or immature sexual pleasures, mere surface
experiences.

Or they lived life asleep as it were. The allusion is to the Seven Sleepers, Christian youths
who fled from the Roman emperor Decius (249-251) and were sealed in a cave. They slept
for nearly two hundred years so the story goes, waking up in a world where Christianity had
taken hold.
So the implication is that these two lived as if asleep until they fell in love and woke up -
their love became a kind of new religion for them.

These four lines, with alternate rhymes, form a quatrain. The end three lines consolidate
meaning, have the same end rhymes and have that final hexameter, a longer line.

Twas so; ...the speaker confirms that, yes, before they were lovers any pleasures were not
real; it was as if they were infants asleep, not really awake but merely dreaming.

And Donne being Donne he goes on to say that his desires were fulfilled - he got what he
wanted out of beauty - but even that wasn't real, it was only a dream.

Analysis of The Good-Morrow Stanza 2

Stanza 2

Having concluded in the first stanza that the lovers weren't really alive, or hadn't done
anything, until they fell in love and became aware, the speaker wishes both of them a good
morning as they wake.

There is no fear in their relationship; they are totally devoted, 100% in love, which is the be
all and end all. They see the world through their love, through love.

And makes one little room an everywhere....the room the lovers are in is small, a microcosm,
yet because their love is universal, it goes everywhere their love goes, and is whole, a
macrocosm.

This line reflects the Renaissance idea that an individual held within them the universe.

The last three lines of this stanza are related to exploration of new worlds. Donne's use of
metaphor is cutting edge for his time - explorers were discovering new terrestrial worlds
using the latest maps, and astronomers were beginning to seriously chart the stars.
The known world was expanding rapidly. Donne connects this fact with the world the lovers
have created.
Let us possess one world (in some versions this is our world)...the speaker affirms that they
have their individual worlds but their love world they possess, they totally own a whole new
world which they are free to explore.

Analysis of The Good-Morrow Stanza 3

Stanza 3

In the third stanza the speaker initially gets close up and personal.

Donne's fascination with reflections and imagery comes to the fore. As the lovers gaze into
each other's eyes they see each other reflected. Evidence of more bonding, of two becoming
one.

The lovers are true and plain - they don't have to pretend or show off or be fancy - in front of
one another.

The speaker reverts to questioning again, as in the first stanza, and asks Where can we find
two better hemispheres (semi-circles) ...which could be their eyes and faces.

Without sharp North....the cold north, relating to a cold relationship

without declining West...the sun sets in the west, end of the day, end of a relationship.

So the speaker in these four lines reinforces the idea that the lovers are a single entity; their
relationship isn't cold or about to end, it is warm and rising.
Whatever dies was not mixed equally....In medical theory of the time death was thought to be
the result of imbalances in the body's elements.

If our two loves...the speaker suggests that their two loves are not at all imbalanced, their
loves are so alike that they can never die.
This is an idealistic end to the poem but Donne's original take on what love is remains with
us today in popular musical lyrics for example.

What Is The Metre (Meter in American English) of The Good-Morrow?

The Good-Morrow has a basic iambic pentameter template, that is, there are five regular
beats and ten syllables in each line except for the last line of each stanza which has twelve, so
count as hexameters.

But there are odd exceptions here and there - some lines with an extra beat for example (11
syllables), others with trochees, spondees and anapaests, which alter rhythm and so bring
added interest for the reader.
The syntax (the way clauses and grammar work together) is also complex in some places.
Extra pauses are needed here and there which together with enjambment mixes up the rhythm
within the lines.
Let's get close up to the metrical beat with a full analysis line by line:

I won / der, by / my troth, / what thou / and I

Did, till / we loved? / Were we / not weaned / till then?
But sucked / on count / ry pleas / ures, chil / dishly?
Or snor / ted we / in the Sev / en Sleep / ers’ den?
’Twas so; / but this, / all pleas / ures fanc / ies be.
If ev / er an / y beau / ty I / did see,
Which I / desired, / and got, / ’twas but / a dream / of thee.

And now / good-mor / row to / our wa / king souls,

Which watch / not one / anoth / er out / of fear;
For love, / all love / of oth / er sights / controls,
And makes / one lit / tle room / an eve / rywhere.
Let sea- / discove / rers to / new worlds / have gone,
Let maps / to oth / ers, 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 fa / ces rest;
Where can / we find / two bet / ter hem / ispheres,
Without /sharpnorth, / without / declin / ing west?
Whatev / er dies, / was not / mixed e / qually;
If our / two loves / be one, / or, thou / and I
Love so / alike, / that none / do slack / en, none / can die.

Out of 21, there are 13 lines of pure iambic pentameter ( 1,6, 8-13, 16,17,19,20) with a
regular daDUM daDUM beat.

The second stanza has six of them but Donne's syntax, use of punctuation and diction, is
creative enough to disturb the plodding rhythm and adds tension and interest for the reader.

Note that in all stanzas the end line is longer, forming a hexameter (six feet) which underlines
what has gone before.
The first stanza has only two lines of pure iambic pentameter so is the most mixed when it
comes to rhythm and beat. The syntax too is complex, with many commas and sub-clauses.
Each question posed by the speaker also has a tendency to slow the reader down, which
deepens the careful reflection shown by the hesitant speaker.

What Are the Literary Devices in The Good-Morrow?

There are several literary devices in The Good-Morrow, including:

Alliteration

When two or more words in close proximity begin with the same consonant:

were we not weaned...

snorted we in the Seven Sleepers'...

Which watch not...

Assonance

When two or more words in a line have the same vowel sounds:

sucked on country...

Seven Sleepers' den...

all love of other...

tine in mine...

true plain hearts do...

Caesura

A pause in a line caused by punctuation, where the reader has to pause. There are several in
this poem, typified in line 14, where there are two:

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

What Is The Structure/Form of The Good-Morrow?

The Good-Morrow is a three stanzas poem, each stanza having 7 lines (heptet).

The rhyme scheme is unusual: ababccc the first four lines of each stanza working together in
alternate pairs, the last three lines being a conclusion or affirmation. All twenty one lines
have mostly full rhyme, except for these near rhymes:
I/childishly...fear/where...gone/shown..equally/I.

Literary Criticism Good-Morrow

https://literariness.org/2020/07/08/analysis-of-john-donnes-the-good-morrow/