VIRTUAL SESSION 2. ACTIVITY 2
Here are two poems by John Donne. For this activity, you
must comment ONE of them (& remove the other one).
THE GOOD-MORROW
(by John Donne)
I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? were we not wean´d till then?
But suck´d 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 mix'd equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
1. Some words (following their order in the poem) are explained for you:
by my troth: really; country: music; snorted: snored; seven sleepers’ den: refers to the legend
of the seven persecuted Christians who were imprisoned in a cave and slept for 187 years but
did not die; but: apart from; fancies: imagination, unreality; good morrow: good morning;
maps: astronomical charts; worlds on worlds: many worlds; hemispheres: two hemispheres
make up the world, but the lovers are superior because their union creates a world which does
not have the negative characteristics of west or north; equally: Galen, the Roman doctor, wrote
that death resulted from an imbalance of elements in the body.
2. Make sure you do understand the meaning of every word in the poem. I have not indicated
the meaning of some words (wean, alike, slacken, etc.) because they are rather common and in
this case, they are used with right sense.
3. Why does the poet wonder what they did before they loved? What does this imply
about the psychological time-scale of love?
