Metaphysical poems bu John Donne
The author addresses his song in the first stanza to an
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
The rhyme scheme of the poem: ababccd. The
meter is closest to the tetrameter and using
mostly iamb : “Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root”.
The poem is like a song, its tone is light and frivolous.
unknown listener, possibly a woman, because the woman
is just as frivolous as this song and because of the
impossibility of doing the things that the ator lists and
asks for them to be done. Things like catching a falling
star, teach how to listen to mermaids singing, telling
everything about the past and who has cleft the devil's
foot.
But at the end of the first stanza, he asks for more
impossible desire. He asks to protect him from burning
envy and to find the wind. Who honestly succeeds in life
in order to ward off envious thoughts.
In the second stanza, the author continues to talk about
impossible things. The fact that if a person is born to see
strange signs and invisible things, you need to drive a
thousand days and nights until the age of white hair. In
my opinion, the author describes the simple life path of
each person who, during his life , can see various signs
and at the end of his path inevitably grows old.
  But most of all you can see his contempt and cynical
for women. He assures that there is no fair and true
woman anywhere. He thus crosses all the above in the
second stanza, showing that it does not matter what you
see and where you go, it is impossible to meet a fair ,
beautiful and truthful woman anywhere : “And swear, No
where
Lives a woman true, and fair.”
In the last stanza, the author asks his listener to inform
him about if the listener finds such a woman anyway, but
in spite of this, he is always showing all the cynicism and
neglect of women. He does not care if they find such an
ideal woman, because no matter what for him, she will
remain false, deceitful and unnatural : “ Though she were
true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,

Air and Angels
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is,
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid love ask, and now
That it assume thy body I allow,
And fix itself to thy lip, eye, and brow.  more important to him. In the second stanza, love
Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught
Every thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere.
Then as an angel, face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere.
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air and angel's purity,
'Twixt women's love and men's will ever be.
This poem covers such important and basic themes
as love and spirituality. The first stanza on
spirituality states that it is immortal. The soul
already existed before it took physical form. The
soul is immortal, it can exist both in the body and
outside it: “But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do.”
About love, the author argues dually. In the first
stanza, the author believes that love must be
bodily, so that it can be understood, recognized
and felt. But on the other hand, the author believes
that the soul can be compared with the soul. Every
soul needs a body. to show soy love. For the
author, it is important that soul and love are
enclosed in a bodily shell, thereby showing that
neither spiritual, but bodily love and intimacy is
is spiritual, real, and far from materiality. Love is
elevated to the angels, their spirituality and purity.
So the author elevates his love and compares it
with the image of the angel, making the soul of his
love as an angel’s pure and immortal .
By the end of the poem, the author’s position is
clearly visible, that sensuality and spirituality are
important for love. Without this, it is impossible.
Love strives to unite two different sides, opposites -
platonic love and spiritual love or the love of man
and woman. As they say, opposites attract the
physical to the spiritual, the man to the woman,
creating between themselves a balance of love: “As
is 'twixt air and angel's purity,
'Twixt women's love and men's will ever be.”
Physical love is not necessarily related to a man,
but spiritual to a woman. Every person is an
individual who can choose his own spiritual path.
Angels: Angels are used as metaphors for purity. The angels depicted are angels of the air. It is a well-
known notion that angels represent the various elements, but the angels representing air are the purest
and rank the highest in the angel hierarchy.

Pinnace: Pinnace is a light boat that is usually conjoined with a ship for emergencies. Pinnace is
metaphorical of love in this poem. In the second half of the poem, the pinnace is over-fraught by a ballast
that has proven to be too strong for the light boat.

Ballast: Ballast is a device by which a vehicle is stabilized. In this poem, the ballast represents societal
conventions of beauty and attire.

Imagery:He uses nautical imagery of a light boat traversing the waters, faltering at times. He portrays love
as a tender, gullible skiff that runs the risk of becoming burdened by the weight of superficial conventions
of society.

Rhythm & Metre:The poem consists of two stanzas, each fourteen lines long. Both the stanzas follow the
abbabacdcddeee rhyme scheme.

In conclusion, the poem is not merely a love sonnet or a religious verse. It is about balance in society and
within oneself. John Donne was born in a recusant Catholic family in Protestant England. Shortly after his
brother, Henry, died, he faced a spiritual crisis which questioned his faith in Roman Catholicism. Later, he
took a job as a preacher in an Anglican church, although he was reluctant to adopt the faith. His search for
equilibrium in his personal life and faith urged him look for some kind of balance in his poetry.
 This poem says that all people living on
No Man Is An Island
earth are one and that each of them is

No man is an island, a part of this world. That he is not

Entire of itself, alone and is part of this world and

other people.
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main. A man living alone resembles a man
If a clod be washed away by the sea, living on a desert island. A man is born
Europe is the less. to live among other people of his own

As well as if a promontory were. kind who live, feel just like him.

As well as if a manor of thy friend's Therefore, a person cannot be lonely,

unless of course he himself wants it.
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me, Donne believes that he and his works
Because I am involved in mankind, are involved in humanity. That a

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;  person's life is a book, and every

It tolls for thee.  person is a chapter in this book of life.

By this, the death of a person is just the
ending chapter in a book, but not the
end of the book itself. All because after
death, the connection between people
does not collapse, because the
memories help not to lose it and leaves
the people left alive in their memory. In
this poem, the author shows that all
people are interrelated, that everyone
experiences the same feelings and
emotions, not different from other
people.
https://beamingnotes.com/2015/02/20/air-angels-analysis-john-donne/

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/please-explain-analyze-go-catch-falling-star-poem-
433750

https://interestingliterature.com/2016/02/23/10-john-donne-poems-everyone-should-read/

http://www.shareyouressays.com/essays/summary-of-no-man-is-an-island-by-john-
donne/97744