A Valediction Forbidding Mourning Commentary

In A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, the speaker explains to his lover that his valediction should not be a time for sadness because 'Virtuous men pass mildly away' and urges her not to mourn his passing. In convincing his lover not to mourn him, the speaker describes how his relationship with her is greater than any normal human relationship and has the ability to transcend the death of either himself or her. He does this through a series of images, such as their connection being like the legs of a compass and changes in their relationship being like the movements of the planets. He also uses a highly ordered structure to suppress the grief that a valediction might normally evoke.

The speaker impresses the motive of the poem; for the lover not to cry for his valediction, upon the reader from the outset, the first line 'As virtuous men pass mildly away' means that when good people die, there is an easy parting. He continues by urging her not to cry; 'No tear floods, nor sigh-tempests move', the metaphor of a storm used here is effective as normally the grieving process is akin to an emotional storm.

The key argument that the speaker is making in this poem to back up his point that the lover should not mourn his valediction is that the love between him and his lover is strong enough to be able to continue once the physical bond has been severed. He gets his argument across through a series of images. He says that his valediction is 'not yet a breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat', this means that the relationship isn't breached, but merely stretched, the gold image implies that the stretching of the relationship makes it more precious or beautiful, just like the beating of gold to make it wafer thin. Another image that the speaker uses to impress his argument is their connection being like that of a pair of compasses; 'And though it in the centre sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it' each lover is like one leg of the pair of compasses, as one lover moves away from the centre, the other leans after them. This is an extremely apt image for the situation in which the speaker and his lover find themselves as it not only has the effect of representing the yearning that the lovers feel for each other in the way that the legs of the compass legs lean towards each other as they move apart, but also the way in which no matter how far apart that they travel they are always connected. This eternal connection exemplifies the point which the speaker is making in the poem, that even in death (when the legs of the 'compass' are spread furthest) are they connected.

Another reason that the speaker gives for his lover not mourning his valediction is that their love is not like that of normal people, so while normal people would grieve at the passing of a loved one, it wouldn't be appropriate for his lover to do so. In the third stanza, the speaker likens changes