Donne: The Good-Morrow

John Donne’s ‘The Good-Morrow’ is a poem that stands at the threshold of a new love universe. ‘The Good-Morrow’ is awakening from a nightmare. The poet is surprised that before the awakening of their love, what they both did. Perhaps, they were satisfied with their simple, rustic and childish pleasures (like sucking mother’s milk). Or perhaps they slept for many years like the seven sleepers who slept in the cave. He admits, with a touch of playful and sophisticated humor that if he found any beautiful girls whom he liked and got, she just a shadow or reflection of her beauty.

The lover’s souls had been asleep before they loved one another. Now their souls have awakened from nightmare to new life. Let them say ‘Good Morning’ to them. Their souls watch each other not out of suspicion or fear but out of love. They are not attracted by any other sight or pleasure due to their deep love. Their small room is as good as the universe. He does not want to imitate those who roam about the globe in search of new world for themselves. Let the maps show to the other people the different worlds that exist. They are happy with the possession of one world- the worlds of love – where the lovers are united into one.

Their faces are reflected in each other’s eyes. Their faces reveal to them that their hearts are pure and innocent. The shape of the eyeballs suggest the metaphor that each lover is a hemisphere, which are better than the geographical hemispheres because their first hemisphere is without the slanting North Pole(with its bitter cold), and their second hemisphere is without the declining west(where the sun sets) , So their love will never grow cold or decline. They know that only those things die whose constituents are not mixed proportionately. Their two loves are one because they are exactly similar in all respect and as such none of them will die. Their mutual love can neither decrease nor decline nor come to an end. Their love will be immortal.

Seven sleepers den: An allusion to a Christian legend. The story is that in A.D.250-252 when Christians were persecuted by the Roman emperor Diocletian, 7 young Christians took refuge in a cave. The Romans walled up the cave entrance to make them die. The young men fell into a miraculous sleep and woke up 200 years later. By then Christianity had become an accepted religion in the Roman empire.
Related Sites for more information
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1168.html
www.online-literature.com/donne/338/