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Sweetest love, I do not go - John Donne

Sweetest love, I do not go, 

         For weariness of thee, 

Nor in hope the world can show 

         A fitter love for me; 

                But since that I 

Must die at last, 'tis best 

To use myself in jest 

         Thus by feign'd deaths to die. 


Yesternight the sun went hence, 

         And yet is here today; 

He hath no desire nor sense, 

         Nor half so short a way: 

                Then fear not me, 

But believe that I shall make 

Speedier journeys, since I take 

         More wings and spurs than he. 


O how feeble is man's power, 

         That if good fortune fall, 

Cannot add another hour, 

         Nor a lost hour recall! 

                But come bad chance, 

And we join to'it our strength, 

And we teach it art and length, 

         Itself o'er us to'advance. 


When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind, 

         But sigh'st my soul away; 

When thou weep'st, unkindly kind, 

         My life's blood doth decay. 

                It cannot be 

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st, 

If in thine my life thou waste, 

         That art the best of me. 


Let not thy divining heart 

         Forethink me any ill; 

Destiny may take thy part, 

         And may thy fears fulfil; 

                But think that we 

Are but turn'd aside to sleep; 

They who one another keep 

         Alive, ne'er parted be. 



John Donne's sonnet 'Sweetest love' deals with the theme of love. The poet is addressed by the lover to his beloved. It presents before us the scene of parting between the lover and his beloved.

The song opens with the lover's request to his beloved that he is going away from her, not because he is tired of her or because of a hope that he will be able to find out a better companion. He tries to convince her that at last parting is bound to be there and so he would prefer an artificial parting by death and not real parting by forgetting her forever. The lover is firmed in his belief that death cannot caused parting between him and his beloved.

The lover gives an example of the sun. The sun at night go away and comes back at morning. Though sun has neither desire nor sense to come back. But lover has both desire and sense and so he would come back at the earliest. His path also is shorter than the sun and he would make a speedy journey to come back to his beloved. His wings are his desire to meet her again.

In the next stanza the lover speak about how helpless mankind is. Though mankind consider himself very powerful, he can not add one hour to his happy time which has already gone. The lover would like to be morally supported by his beloved in fighting out this parting between him and her.

The lover makes an humble request to his beloved not to sigh and weep, because when she sighed and weeps, his soul and blood which are in the beloved, come out. If she truly loves him, her sighs and tears must stop because she has no right to waste his soul and blood.

The concluding stanza of the poem is the lover's request to his beloved. She should not think anything sad or bad because destiny plays it's role so far they  lived together and after death they would sleep side by side in their grave. The lover wants to assure her that nothing can cause parting between him and his beloved.


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