Song: Sweetest love, I do not go

BY JOHN DONNE

Sweetest love, I do not go,

         For weariness of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

         A fitter love for me;

                But since that I

Must die at last, 'tis best

To use myself in jest

         Thus by feign'd deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,

         And yet is here today;

He hath no desire nor sense,

         Nor half so short a way:

                Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make

Speedier journeys, since I take

         More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,

         That if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

         Nor a lost hour recall!

                But come bad chance,

And we join to'it our strength,

And we teach it art and length,

         Itself o'er us to'advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,

         But sigh'st my soul away;

When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

         My life's blood doth decay.

                It cannot be

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

         That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart

         Forethink me any ill;

Destiny may take thy part,

         And may thy fears fulfil;

                But think that we

Are but turn'd aside to sleep;

They who one another keep

         Alive, ne'er parted be.

The poet tells his beloved that he is not leaving because he is tired of the relationship—instead, he must go as a duty. After all, the sun departs each night but returns every morning, and he has a much shorter distance to travel. The third stanza suggests that his duty to leave is unstoppable; man’s power is so feeble that good fortune cannot lengthen his life, while bad fortune will shorten it. Indeed, fighting bad fortune only shares one’s strength with it. As the beloved sighs and cries, the lover complains that if he is really within her, she is the one letting him go because he is part of her tears and breath. He asks her not to fear any evil that may befall him while he is gone, and besides, they keep each other alive in their hearts and therefore are never truly parted.