The Good Morrow by John Donne | Summary, Analysis, Explanation

 The Good Morrow by John Donne | Summary, Analysis, Explanation

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Good Morrow is a metaphysical morning poem (aubade) by John Donne which was first published in his collection Songs and Sonnets in 1633. It is a secular love poem in which he compares love as a new religion the two lovers have founded. He compares himself and his lover with Seven Sleepers of Christian mythology. The seven sleepers is a myth of seven Christian children whom the Roman king Decius forced to renounce Christianity but they remained loyal to their faith. Ultimately, king Decius ordered them to be captured and left in a cave to die. In the cave, the seven Christian kids were trapped and they fell asleep. God protected them against all odds and they woke up again 200 years later.

So the poem has some interesting metaphysical conceit. John Donne also raises the astronomical progress of his times in this poem and he mentions the exploration of the New World.

Just like The Sun Rising, this poem is also an aubade and the poet brings the reader right into his bedroom where he and his beloved are just waking up after a calm sleep. Here also, John Donne uses conceit as the poem suggests that their love has awakened them and has offered them a new life as if they were in deep slumber before coming to know each other. Now when they are together and have realized the true love within, it is like a new morning, and the poet greets his lover and readers with Good Morrow, which is an old manner of greeting good morning...

Structure of the Poem

While it is often considered as a sonnet, the poem is not in the standard form of sonnets. The poem has 21 lines with 3 stanzas having 7 lines each (heptet). The first six lines in each stanza are in iambic pentameter (with some exceptions) while the last line of each stanza is a little longer. The last line of each stanza is in an iambic hexameter. John Donne has used alliteration, assonance, and caesura at various places in the poem. The rhythm scheme of the poem is ababccc which is quite unusual. The poet offers his idea in the first four lines while the last three lines of each stanza have been used to offer confirmation or conclusion.

Summary of The Good Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked 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.

John Donne often expressed a strong idea of love in his poems. For him, love was heat, fire, growth, or progress, unity, alchemy, a whole living organism, the whole universe, and a new sacred religion. Donne begins the poem right in his bedroom where the poet and his beloved just got up after a calm sleep. The poet asks himself and his beloved a puzzling question that takes the reader into the poet's mind. The language is old English, thou means you, and ‘by my troth’ means in all honesty or truth. The question appears after the enjambment in the second line. The poet asks what kind of life were he and his beloved leading before they fell in love and became lovers.

The poet further asks, “Were we not weaned till then?” weaned means to be influenced from a situation or early age here. The poet suggests that before the two lovers met and became lovers, they were not mature but childish, as if they were babies sucking their mothers' breasts. Thus, before falling in love, the two of them were just like infants. The poet further asks that weren’t the two lovers just wasting their life childishly on cheaper sensualities and immature sexual pleasure before realizing the true love.

In the next line, the poet offers a strong allusion to Christian mythology. He suggests that before falling in love, they were asleep, like the Seven Sleepers who continued to sleep for 200 years after the Roman king Decius imprisoned them in a sealed cave. So the poet says that both of them were asleep until they fell in love. Love woke them up and love became their true religion.

The poet poses his idea about love in these first four lines (quatrain).

In the next three lines, the poet affirms his assertion about love. ‘Twas So; but this...’

The poet says that they were childish and were sleeping before they fell in love as if they were just dreaming. Donne says that even before experiencing true love, he got everything of beauty that he desired, but all of it was false as a dream, it wasn’t real.

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.

The poet concludes that they were not alive or were just in deep slumber before falling in love in the first stanza. Now when love has awakened them, the poet begins the second stanza by greeting good morning to himself and his beloved. So the poet suggests that love has brought them a new beginning, a new life, a new morning.

In the second line, the poet asserts the wholeness of their love. There is no fear nor doubts as to both lovers equally care for each other and are true to each other. The poet says that now the two lovers see the whole world with a new vision of love as love controls all their sights. He brings upon the philosophical idea of ‘A Man is a Universe in Himself.’ They see the world through love and their little bedroom is a whole microcosm in itself. But since their love is Universal and pervades all, their microcosm is equivalent to the whole macrocosm.

In the next line, Donne uses the metaphor and suggests that since the two lovers are a whole new universe in themselves which requires a great exploration and new discoveries, it is equivalent to the exploration of the New World (or America) which was in vogue during his time. Furthermore, Donne was also aware of the new astronomical ideas of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo (that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa). In the 16^th century, exploration of new lands on earth and alien world in the sky were gaining momentum and Donne uses this fact in his poem. He suggests that while the two lovers are a whole universe within themselves, they possess a new world or universe of love together which is now ready to be explored and revealed.

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 mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Donne begins the third stanza while expressing his closeness with his beloved. The two lovers gaze into each other’s eyes and they can see the reflection of each other as if they are one. This shows the strength of the bond between the two lovers. The poet further poses a question and asks (where can we find two better hemispheres). The poet suggests that their eyes and face are two hemispheres of a single entity, a single whole circle of love. These hemispheres are specific with no sharp north. Donne offers imagery of the earth here. Unlike earth, the hemispheres of their love world don’t have a sharp north and hence, it is warm throughout everywhere, nowhere cold. What the poet means is that their love is constantly warm with no dips. He further says that there is no declining west in their whole sphere of the love of which the two lovers are hemispheres. The sunsets in the west, but since their love world has no declining west, their sun of love is always rising.

In the next three lines, Donne offers the conclusion that their love is eternal and it has united the two lovers as if they are one and equal with no difference. Donne uses alchemy here and suggests that a person dies because of the imbalances of fluids in his body (it was a renaissance idea of the 16th-17th century). Since their love has no imbalance, it is equally mixed and it makes the two lovers united as single, hence non of the lovers can feel weak or diminish, they are eternal as their love which will never die. In the last stanza, the poet suggests that while the lovers were in slumber before they met and fell in love, but now love has awakened them and they are fully conscious as love has miraculously awakened their souls and joined them to become one. Donne compared love with religion here again and indicates that their love is like that explained by Paul the Apostle who claimed that true love and full awakening is possible only in heaven.

The Good Morrow is similar to Donne’s other poem The Sun Rising that we have already discussed. Both these are secular poem presents Donne’s theory of love. For Donne, love is a consciousness of souls which unites two souls and makes them whole.

We will continue to discuss some other important works by John Donne. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!