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The Good-Morrow by John Donne

Analysis of The Good-Morrow 

Stanza One 

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. 

In the first stanza of ‘The Good-Morrow’, the speaker begins with three questions. They all inquire into the state of his and his lover’s lives before they were known to one another. He wonders allowed, addressing his lover, what “by my troth” (or what in the world) they did before they loved. This question and those which follow are r. He does not expect a real answer. 

In the next line, he asks if they were “not weaned till then.” He does not believe the two were truly adults, separated from their mother’s milk until they met. Their lives did not begin until they gave up “country pleasures.” They became more sophisticated and less dependent on childish pleasures. 

In the fourth line, he asks if they were sleeping like the “Seven Sleepers.” This is a reference to a story regarding seven children buried alive by a Roman emperor. Rather than dying, they slept through their long entombment to be found almost 200 years later. It is like the speaker has his lover were in stasis until they could be unearthed at the proper time and brought together. 

The final three lines of the stanza answer his previous questions. He says, yes, of course, everything he said is the truth. Anything he experienced before getting with this current lover was not real. It was only a fancy. 

 

Stanza Two 

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 second stanza is structured in a similar way in which the first four lines introduce a reader to another aspect of the relationship. He describes how now, in their “good-morrow’ they will live in happiness together. There will be no need to “watch…one anther out of fear.” Their relationship is perfect. 

 

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