A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

poem by Donne

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, poem by John Donne, published in 1633 in the first edition of Songs and Sonnets. It is one of his finest love poems, notable for its grave beauty and Metaphysical wit.

The narrator of the poem hopes to avoid a tearful departure from his mistress and explains to her that their mature spiritual love can withstand their temporary separation, unlike “dull sublunary lovers’ love” which demands physical presence. In a famous passage, Donne describes their souls as being affixed together like a pair of compasses joined by a pivot:

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.