John Donne addresses his poem “The Sun Rising” to the sun, but the theme of the poem is the joy of true love. The poet derives infinite joy by loving and by being loved. The poet’s wit and irony are here directed against the sun for trying to interfere in the lover’s happiness.
In the opening stanza, the sun is addressed as “busy, old fool” flashing
his light into the lover’s bedroom, perhaps with the intention of
waking up and parting them. It is unfair on his part to expect the
lovers to act according to his movements. He may go about his trivial
errands like pulling up ‘late school boys’ and lazy apprentices who hate
to work. The country ants and courtiers may knuckle under his
authority but not so the lovers. Love is above time, which is regulated
by the sun. For lovers, seasons, hours and days have no meaning.
The argument against the sun is continued. The sun need not think that
his light is dazzling and worthy of respect. If the poet closes his
eyes, the sunlight is rendered dark. But he does not like to lose sight
of his beloved by closing his eyes. In hyperbolic language he asks the
sun if the eyes of his beloved are not brighter than sunlight. Gazing
into her eyes, the sun may feel dazzled. Roaming over the whole world,
the sun can inform him on the next day whether the lady is not worth
more than the East and the West Indies. The poet’s lady comprises in
her all the kingdoms. The poet, in the possession of his mistress is
thus richer than any king on earth.
The lovers in Donne’s poem are the archetypal ideas or the soul of the
world, of which the states and princes are imperfect perfections. The
poet declares that there is nothing else besides him and his beloved
which implies that they have become one, and together they constitute
the soul of the world. The lovers can look down upon the world from the
heights of perfection they have reached through the realization of
their true love. The pomp and majesty of a king is then a mere
imitation of the glory attained by lovers. Compared to their spiritual
wealth, all material wealth seems counterfeit. The sun, being old and
run down, will welcome the contraction of the world. Now that the
lovers are the world, the can fulfill his duty of lighting and warming
the world by merely shining on them. By circling round a single room,
he can circle round the whole world.
The tone of the poem is gently ironic besides being playful and
colloquial. Love is shown as having triumphed over time and space. The
poet’s sense of completeness in the possession of his mistress is an
illusion. The lovers mock at space and time as illusions without
realizing that they themselves are under an illusion. Those who accept
the reality of time and space may be poor deluded mortals, but the
lovers who pride themselves I having achieved a sense of completeness
are by no means better. Professor A. Stein points out, “What the
lovers represent majestically is not a distillation of all that is
precious and delightful on earth to the imagination of a lover, who does
not feel himself quite on earth…. The lovers possess in their bed what
does not seem to incommode them as idea and image, a composite token of
the material possession of that gross external world.”
The lovers look out on other illusions from an unexamined illusion. The
poet, with his beloved by his side, feels infinite bliss, which to him
appears perfect. He tries to force on us the conviction that the kings
and their kingdoms are all with the lovers. The lady comprises in her
all the kingdoms, and the poet comprises in him all the kings. A king
with all his indisputable power and majesty can only imitate the bliss
of the lovers. Even the sun is presented as being glad to move round
the lovers who represent the whole world. The sun’s duty of giving
light and warmth to the world is thus lightened.
All told, one is left wondering if Donne is not mocking at himself and
his lady, living in an illusory world of unadulterated joy. Donne is
here mocking at the conventional conceits found in the love poems of his
time, or he imply that the lovers represent the soul of the world or
the Platonic archetype of the world.