The Good Morrow by John Donne - Explanation
The poem "The Good Morrow" written by John Donne is a love poem and features the strong love between Donne and his beloved. In Donne's view, all other pleasures are nothing in comparison to love and being in love is the ultimate awakening. He takes pride in finding his beloved who is no less than the whole world. He finds other enterprises in this world futile.
Donne employs the rhyme scheme of ababccc recurring in each stanza. The phrase "were we not weaned" is a metaphor for an infant who had not left the practice of sucking of mother's milk. "Seven Sleepers’ den" is an allusion referring to seven men who hide in a cave for three hundred years. "two better hemispheres" is a metaphor pointing to Donne and his beloved.
Explanation
Stanza 1
Donne wonders what he and his beloved have been doing all those years before falling in love. He speculates that they were satisfied with little pleasures of life like an infant preoccupied with mother's milk. Or they remained ignorant of real thing like seven sleepers who slept in a cave for hundreds of years ignorant of the outside world. He reckons that all of the alleged pleasures were nothing as compared to his beloved who, according to him, is the most exquisite thing he ever saw. He dreams about her and wants to be with her.
Stanza 2
It is only after they fell in love, they experienced the best thing. And the poet wishes good morning to their souls who, at last, are awake. They look at each other with only love. There is no mistrust or fear of one over another. Their love prevents them from running after another "sight". Their little bedroom is equivalent to the whole world. Others are confined to their primary work. Voyagers are busy in discovering new lands. Man-made maps show the worlds to others. But the poet and his beloved lives jointly in their own world of love.
Stanza 3
The poet and his beloved gaze in each other's eyes and finds their face in it. Like their eyes, their hearts are true and dedicated to each other. There are no better symbolism of hemispheres (of the earth) than the narrator and his beloved. They are perfect hemispheres as they are "Without sharp north, without declining west" The poet emphasizes that to achieve harmony, two things must be added in equal proportion otherwise it perish. He says that both of them are one because they are similar and made for each other. That's why neither their love nor they can die.
Donne employs the rhyme scheme of ababccc recurring in each stanza. The phrase "were we not weaned" is a metaphor for an infant who had not left the practice of sucking of mother's milk. "Seven Sleepers’ den" is an allusion referring to seven men who hide in a cave for three hundred years. "two better hemispheres" is a metaphor pointing to Donne and his beloved.
Explanation
Stanza 1
Donne wonders what he and his beloved have been doing all those years before falling in love. He speculates that they were satisfied with little pleasures of life like an infant preoccupied with mother's milk. Or they remained ignorant of real thing like seven sleepers who slept in a cave for hundreds of years ignorant of the outside world. He reckons that all of the alleged pleasures were nothing as compared to his beloved who, according to him, is the most exquisite thing he ever saw. He dreams about her and wants to be with her.
Stanza 2
It is only after they fell in love, they experienced the best thing. And the poet wishes good morning to their souls who, at last, are awake. They look at each other with only love. There is no mistrust or fear of one over another. Their love prevents them from running after another "sight". Their little bedroom is equivalent to the whole world. Others are confined to their primary work. Voyagers are busy in discovering new lands. Man-made maps show the worlds to others. But the poet and his beloved lives jointly in their own world of love.
Stanza 3
The poet and his beloved gaze in each other's eyes and finds their face in it. Like their eyes, their hearts are true and dedicated to each other. There are no better symbolism of hemispheres (of the earth) than the narrator and his beloved. They are perfect hemispheres as they are "Without sharp north, without declining west" The poet emphasizes that to achieve harmony, two things must be added in equal proportion otherwise it perish. He says that both of them are one because they are similar and made for each other. That's why neither their love nor they can die.