The Sun Rising by John Donne as a metaphysical poem

        The 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 is a highly entertaining piece of metaphysical poem composed by John Donne, the leading metaphysical poet in the seventeenth century Britain. The term ‘Metaphysical Poets’ was coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson to describe the 17th century poets including John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and Abraham Cowley. They had a rational and intellectual view points towards poetry and remarkably unified the sensibilities of emotion and intellect.

Their poetry is characterized by abrupt or dramatic beginning, random and unlike comparison, verbal humour along with life philosophy and heavy use of literary devices like metaphor, irony, paradox and hyperbole.

According to Dr.Samuel Johnson "the metaphysical poets were men of learning, and, to show their learning was their whole endeavour". They possess a modern sensibility as they brought daring experimentation in the field of poetry both in form and theme.

The poem ‘Sun rising’ begins abruptly with certain dramatic sequences as the speaker is so angry and frustrated which results in shouting at the sun “Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?”

In the first stanza, the speaker addresses the sun as an unruly and aggressive intruder into his bedroom. He questions why the sun is trying to disturb him and his lady love by peeping through the windows and curtains. The speaker mocks the sun, calling it a "pedantic wretch" and suggests that it should instead bother schoolboys, apprentices, court-huntsmen, and peasants. The speaker states that love is not bound by time or seasons.

In the second stanza, the speaker addresses the sun's golden beams, stating that he could easily overshadow them with a blink of his eye but he doesn't want to lose sight of his beloved for even a moment. He challenges the sun that his beloved is brighter than you. The speaker humorously suggests that the sun should inquire about the wealth and treasure of the Indies, implying that everything important is right here in his lover's bed.

In the final stanza, the speaker declares that his love encompasses all the qualities of states and princes, making everything else insignificant. He suggests that worldly honors and wealth are mere temporary, and true happiness is found in love. The speaker concludes by telling the sun that it can be only half as happy as they are because it warms the whole world, while their love is confined to their intimate space. The poem ends with the idea that their love makes their bed the center of the universe, and the walls of their room become its boundaries.

The Sun Rising is a metaphysical poem that blends humor, hyperbole, and paradoxical ideas to celebrate the power of love over worldly concerns. Donne uses the sun as a symbol of the external world and contrasts it with the intimate world of the lovers, emphasizing the supremacy of love.

 

The most remarkable quality of Donne’s poetry is the use of metaphysical conceit which is a figure of speech in which two farfetched objects or images of very different nature are compared. It definitely surprises its readers by its novel thought and delights them by its intellectual quality. A metaphysical conceit is a far-fetched metaphor, hyperbole, contradiction, simile, paradox or oxymoron causing a shock to the reader.

The main conceit or metaphor of “The Sun Rising” is the personification of the sun into an old man – a "busy old fool" – whose business it is to get everyone out of bed and on the way to work. The speaker in fact shouts at the sun, and this creates a comic or rather dramatic opening to the poem. This is extended when, in the second stanza, he claims that he is stronger than the sun, because he can "eclipse and cloud" his beams just by blinking. This is of course true, but it does not really mean that the sun is not "so reverend, and strong". At the end of the poem he treats the Sun more gently: his "age asks ease" so they are in the position to help him, since he only has to warm the two of them, and he warms the whole world.

The secondary conceit is the metaphor that the speaker’s lady love is "all states" – she is all the treasures of the world. As a result, therefore, he is "all princes". Donne elevates the importance of the relationship using this hyperbole.

Donne employs the amazingly original conceit that makes his poems with a common love topic so uncommon. Donne’s poems are quite capable of stirring the emotions, and no matter how uncommon and intellectual his conceits, The Sun Rising is a classic love poem in the history of world literature.