Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell
court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call
country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether
both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be
where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.
She's all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine
age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm
the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
The sun
Rising is a genuine evidence of metaphysical poetry written by Donne as the
pioneer of this school. The poem deals with the theme of love. Here the lover
portrays his beloved superior to the sun rising.
The lover
addresses to the sun as “Busy”, “Old fool” and “Unruly” simply it peeps through
the windows and curtains into their bedroom. The lover wants to make clear that
the season and time of lovers can never be governed by the sun. The lover
instructs the rising sun to go and apply its force to late school children,
workers and employees of the court. Lovers don’t accept the concept of time
because months, years, days, hours are just the rags of time. The lover wants
to convey a message to the Sun that lovers have nothing to do with either
rising or setting of the sun.
The lover is
not ready even to believe that the rays of the sun are powerful. It is possible
for him to create an eclipse on the sun simply by closing his eyes, but he
doesn’t do that because even for a moment he cannot bear losing the sight of
his beloved. It is lover’s conviction that there is more shine in the eyes of
his beloved and if she looks at the sun with her eyes than the sun would be
dazzled. The lover mentions that after taking a round of the earth, the sun
would realise that real India of spices is in his bedroom; in the form of his
beloved.
The lover
compares his beloved with all the kingdoms, states, princes and princesses. One
round of the earth would be enough for the sun to realise that the centre of
the earth is his beloved. Giving light to his beloved is equal to giving light
to the whole world. The lover is of the opinion that the sense of honour is
just a mimic compared to his love for his beloved. Even wealth is nothing but a
chemical compared to love. So, the lover and his beloved are not ready to
accept worldly rules and regulations set by the sun.
The present
poem is an attempt of John Donne to establish the place of love higher than the
place of the sun. The metaphysical images employed by the poet are “Sun”,
“States”, “Princesses”, “India of Spices” and so on. It is an experiment of
Donne to use images from the field of politics and nature for the expression of
love.
Reference-
- · https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44129
- · Class notes (18/9/2015) by R.K.Mandaliya
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