A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, While some of their sad friends do say, The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, ‘Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears; Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dulcet, soft solitudes, acquired Of pure and deepest dives of art; But O, dear love, though it fall apart, We have so great a Nature spired!

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixt foot makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in another sphere Each hath a part, yet we see How there be neither more nor severe To part our nature; we are one, made free. So let us not disturb the air, But by our drowsy breath repay The silent intercourse of nature—all in a sway!

• John Donne