Analysis of A Valediction Of Weeping

John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)



Let me pour forth
     My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
     For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
     And by this mintage they are something worth,
         For thus they be
         Pregnant of thee;
     Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
     When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,
     So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.

On a round ball
   A workman that hath copies by, can lay
   An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
   And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
       So doth each tear
       Which thee doth wear,
   A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
   Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow
   This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more than moon,
   Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
   Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
   To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
       Let not the wind
       Example find,
   To do me more harm than it purposeth;
   Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,
   Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.


Scheme ABCXDDEEE FXXFCCGGG HXBHIIAJJ
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 1101111111 1111101111 0111011101 1111 1011 1111111011 1011111111 11011101110011 1011 0101110111 11010110 0101111101 1111 1111 0111110101 111111110 11110111110011 1111 1111111011 111101111 1101111111 1101 0101 11111111 1101110101 11111010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,105
Words 197
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 9, 9, 9
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 254
Words per stanza (avg) 65
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:00 min read
80

John Donne

John Donne was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and a cleric in the Church of England. more…

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