Previous Next

To understand the structure of the speaker’s address to his lover, it’s useful to break the poem down into three individual sections, each of which builds on the previous one. The first section consists of the first two stanzas, which together comprise a single sentence. This long sentence sketches out a somewhat extravagant simile in which the speaker compares his parting from his lover to the silent deaths of “virtuous men” (line 1). Though outlandish, the speaker makes this comparison in the hopes of keeping his departure as peaceful as possible. And yet, the speaker is also essentially telling his lover to calm down. Perhaps in recognition of his insensitivity, the speaker moves into the second section of his address, which unfolds in stanzas 3–6. Here, the speaker justifies his emphasis on calming the emotions with a critique of what he calls “dull sublunary lovers’ love” (line 13). Instead of giving into base emotional and physical urges, the speaker insists on the spiritual nature of love. As such, he and his lover should see themselves as existing in a divine cosmos where it’s possible for them to exist together in spiritual unity, even when physically separated.

The second section’s emphasis on spiritual unity leads to the third section, in stanzas 7–9. Here, the speaker imagines himself and his lover as two feet of a compass, which a tool that geometers and mapmakers use for drawing circles and arcs. Whereas his lover is “the fixed foot” (line 27), he is the adjustable foot that traces out the radius of the circle. This compass conceit showcases the speaker’s remarkable ingenuity, particularly in the way it transposes his earlier imagery into a new key. Previously, he discussed their love as something that transcended the earthly plane—a spiritual unity that persisted despite his and his lover’s physical presence on earth. Here, the speaker introduces a conceit that links the earthly and the spiritual in a surprising way. With both he and his lover representing one foot of the compass, their physical selves are firmly planted on the paper. This paper is itself a representation of earth, since it’s a map of the earth’s surface. Yet far above this material surface is a compass-like spiritual mechanism that invisibly connects the two “feet,” and which will ensure that the speaker traces out a circle such that he “end[s] where I begun” (line 36).

Previous section Tone Next section Meter

Take a Study Break