A Valediction

I was struck by the passion in the words of John Donne's A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.  The speaker, possibly a sailor, implores his lover to "make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempest move..." (Donne, 802).  He tells her not to cry because, though he will be leaving for a time, he will be back.  He cannot stay away from something that is a part of him, as she was.  I loved how he ended with saying that his journey would "make [him] end, where [he had] begun" (Donne, 802).  He had no choice but to come back to her.  Their love was too strong to be severed or ended by distance or time.  He compares them to gold.  He insists that they will never be torn from each other forever, but, instead, temporarily separated.  The emotion put into each stanza is tangible.  The reader can feel the combination of grief and hope that the speaker is feeling.  He clearly does not want to leave his beloved, but, for some reason, must.  He is confident, however, that nothing will change his love for her nor hers for him, and that he will soon return to her.