Assignment: Read the poem several times (at least 3).

Compose a reader response in the style of a

journal entry, and then answer the questions that follow. The journal prompt and questions are on
the other side of this page.

The Good-Morrow
BY JOHN DONNE

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
Line But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
4 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.

8 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.
12 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,

16 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;
21 If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)

“The Good Morrow” by John Donne

First Response: What did you get from your first readings? Can you put into words your first
response? Don’t worry if it’s hazy at this point: just see if you can identify a mood or tone of
voice. You might push yourself to try to answer some very basic questions: What is he
asking in the first verse? What is he claiming in the second verse? What is he doing in the
third verse? In each of the verses, the action is all in the first four lines. In the last three lines
he thinks about what he has just said.

Extended Response: With a little more preliminary work, you will be ready to try a more confident
approach to the poem. Here are explanations of some of the grammatical inversions:

 In line 5, “all pleasures fancies be” means “compared to this, any other pleasure is just a
momentary whim.”
 In line 10, “love, all love of other sights controls” resolves itself into “love controls all love of
other sights” and means “being in love makes you care less about anything else you might
see.”
 Lines 12-13 answer the question: “What about explorers who have gone to new worlds, or
others who have been shown all earth and the heavens on terrestrial or astral maps?” The
speaker answers, “Let them have gone and have looked: I don’t need to (my entire universe
is right in front of me).” Awwww…
 Lines 7-8 can be paraphrased “If I ever saw a beautiful woman, and desired her and won her
love, I was just dreaming, in advance, of you.”

Ask Questions (answer the following completely, and thoughtfully):

1. Does the poem give us any clues about who is talking to whom?
2. What is the subject of each of the poem’s three verses/stanzas?
3. Why are globes and maps and exploration mentioned so often?
4. Most love songs make some sort of claim about love, or this love, or the lovers. What claim
or claims does this poem make?
5. In the first stanza, the speaker offers two possible explanations of their lives before they fell
in love. What are the two possibilities?
6. Lines 8-9 assert that the couple’s “…waking souls/Which watch not one another out of fear.”
What fear could this be?
7. What are the two “hemispheres” that he and his beloved have “found”? What hemispheres
are they compared to? Why is north “sharp” and west “declining”?
8. What makes this such a “good morrow”? What are the speaker’s feelings?
9. Yes, this is a love poem, but what kind of love poem? What kind of love? If this is some sort
of definition of love, how does it define love?
10. Can you identify any exaggerations in the poem? Can you suggest how these exaggerations
are part of the speaker’s purpose?
11. How many different threats to love are indirectly referred to in the poem? What are they?
How does the speaker deal with them?