Have you ever parted from someone that you truly love? In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem by John Donne, we see what it is like to part from a significant other. This poem suggests sadness, fear, and anxiety, all things that a person goes through when parting from their significant other(17). In this poem we see the affect of separating two lovers. The two lovers in the poem are their own self-sustaining universes. They have no need for anyone else because they are altered to depend on each other. In telling his tale Donne uses myriad poetic techniques.
             The first stanza is written in iambic pentameter but the rest are written in iambic tetrameter. The stanza contains a lot of sibilants or words beginning with the letter "s" and this is used to create a soft, gentle atmosphere for example, "...some of their sad friends doe say"(3). The man in the poem accepts the fact that he must leave his lover knowing that he will be able to return. The poet uses phrases like, "...prophanation of our joys"(7), to elevate the lovers to the status of a superior existence. He also ties in the idea of lovers as planets revolving above the earth. Donne implies true, pure love, when he states, "A love, so much refined"(17). But, this also ties in the apposite pure element or gold imagery that is used throughout the poem.
             In the second stanza the speaker continues to allusions to a peaceful separation. "So let us melt, and make no noise"(5) refers to the melting of gold by a goldsmith or alchemist. When gold is melted it does not sputter or hiss and is therefore quiet, which is how the speaker wants his separation from his lover to be. The speaker and his lover should not display their private, intimate love as "tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move"(6). The second stanza introduces another category of startli
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