The Sun Rising

John Donne
 Stanza 1
Tone:
scornful, In this time, the sun was
disrespectful. seen as a king of the sky,
Why? something to be honoured.
Poet is disrespectful.
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, 1
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Rhetorical
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? questions

The speaker is angry,

because the sun is
interrupting him with his
lover.
Also, the sun dictates their
time together.
 Stanza 1 continued
The speaker is directing
the sun to interfere with
Tone: scornful.
the people mentioned in
Speakers sees himself
as superior to the sun. the rest of the stanza – his
subordinates.
u Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide 5 Definite tone. These lines at the
Late school-boys and sour prentices, end of the stanza round it off.
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Timeless Short and long lines suggest
Call country ants to harvest offices; rhythms of daily speech, along
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, with rhetorical question.
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 10
Metaphor (conceit)
The “hours, days, moths” are
The poet and his mistress Unchanging compared to “rags”. Rags have
are not tied to the sun’s connotations of being unwanted
passage. They are not He stresses how free and being in tatters. Rags would
servants to anyone. the lovers are, normally refer to tattered
unaffected by time.
material.
Their love set them
free.
 Stanza 2

The speaker
u Thy beams so reverend, and strong is superior to
the sun.
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.

He doesn’t want
Tone: to miss looking
superior, at his mistress
arrogant,
boastful
Stanza 3

The mistress
is compared
to the riches
of the world.
u If her eyes have not blinded thine, 15
(West and
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
East Indies)
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay." 20

Speaker feels wealthy in emotional

satisfaction and happiness;
superior to the sun (which can be
eclipsed in a wink).
 Stanza 4 Personal pronouns
are balanced.
Together, the man and “all” repeated as
woman = own world; well.
nothing else matters.
They are complete.
There are 2 simple
sentences joined by
u She's all states, and all princes I; ‘and’.
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this, Short
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. sentence, 4
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, syllables = 25
Princes only In that the world's contracted thus; no arguing
acting; he
and his Mimic = copy
The sun is single. The
lover = real Alchemy = turning metal Their
speaker and his
thing. to gold. love.
mistress are together
This means everything is
= whole.
fake; only their love is
real.
 Stanza 4 continued
He can ease the sun’s
Tone:
old age; it may shine
patronizing and
on the world of the
condescending
lovers.

u Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere. 30

The sun has to warm the world,

but the speaker and his
mistress = world; thus, if the
sun shines on them, its work is
done. (conceit)