Sun Rising by John Donne.

About Poet:

John Donne’s standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in the early 20th century. The history of Donne’s reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In Donne’s own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For some 30 years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. 

Sun Rising:

 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 by John Donne is a genuine evidence of metaphysical poetry written by Donne as the pioneer of this school. The poem deals with the theme of love of a lover for his beloved. It is an address of a lover to the rising sun. In which the lover portrays his beloved superior to the rising sun. The lover addresses the sun as “busy”, “old fool” and “unruly” simply because it peeps through windows and curtains into the bedroom of the lover where is in the company of his beloved. The lover wants to make it 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 do not 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 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/ tolerate losing a sight of his beloved. It is lovers conviction that there is a greater shine in the eyes of his beloved and if the sun looks at her eyes, the eyes of the sun would be dazzled. The lover mentions that after taking a round of the Earth, the sun would realize 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 realize that the center of the Earth is his beloved and giving light to his beloved would be as good as giving light to the whole world. The lover is of the opinion that the sense of honor 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 as set by the sun.

The present poem is an attempt of Donne to establish the place of love higher than the place of the sun. The metaphysical images employed by the poet are “sun”, “states”, “princes”, “princesses”, “India of spices” and so on. It is an experiment of Donne that he uses images from the field of politics and nature for the expression of love.