The Canonization By John Donne

 The Canonization

BY JOHN DONNE

For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

     Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,

         With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,

                Take you a course, get you a place,

                Observe his honor, or his grace,

Or the king's real, or his stampèd face

         Contemplate; what you will, approve,

         So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?

         What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

         When did my colds a forward spring remove?

                When did the heats which my veins fill

                Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

         Litigious men, which quarrels move,

         Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

         Call her one, me another fly,

We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,

         And we in us find the eagle and the dove.

                The phoenix riddle hath more wit

                By us; we two being one, are it.

So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.

         We die and rise the same, and prove

         Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,

         And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

         And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

                We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

                As well a well-wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,

         And by these hymns, all shall approve

         Us canonized for Love.

And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love

         Made one another’s hermitage;

You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;

         Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove

                Into the glasses of your eyes

                (So made such mirrors, and such spies,

That they did all to you epitomize)

         Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

         A pattern of your love!”

Introduction : 

"The Canonization" is a poem by the metaphysical poet John Donne, likely written around 1609-1610 during his early married life to his wife Anne. It is part of Donne's acclaimed collection Songs and Sonnets. The poem takes the form of a dramatic outburst, with the speaker passionately defending his love against outside criticism and societal constraints. 

Through intricate metaphors, paradoxes, and arguments, Donne elevates the concept of romantic love to a quasi-religious ideal that transcends earthly concerns. The layered images and conceits create a sense of sacred mystery around love that makes it powerful and transformative. With his characteristic wit and intensity, Donne crafts an ode to romantic love that challenges conventional perceptions of its meaning and importance.

Summary :

The poem opens with the speaker defiantly telling someone to hold their tongue and allow him to love freely, without chiding him for age, poverty or other superficial flaws. He asks rhetorically who is truly harmed by his love, using metaphors of merchant ships and agricultural floods to symbolize its harmlessness. The tone takes on a sarcastic edge as he notes the destructive professions of soldiers and lawyers are undisturbed by his innocent love.

He then moves into an elaborate conceit, comparing himself and his beloved to paired creatures like flies, candles burning out, an eagle and dove contained in one being like the mythical phoenix. Through these metaphors, he argues that male and female dichotomies are unified by the power of love into an enigmatic, transcendent third being.

The speaker states that even if their love proves unfit for grand memorials, they will be immortalized through "pretty rooms" of poetic verse. Using undertaker and religious imagery, he imagines future generations venerating their love as holy, begging for insight into the pattern of their mystic, world-encompassing love.

Structure and Rhyme : 

The poem consists of 5 rimed stanzas of 9 lines each, with the rhyme scheme ABCABCDCD in each stanza. This unusual 9-line stanza form is known as a Ninde Novena and was favored by Donne.

The consistent ABCABCDCD rhyme scheme creates a melodic, incantatory feel reflecting the poem's theme of love's mystic power. The final D rhymes in each stanza like "love/prove/above" have a sense of culmination, mirroring the passion building with each metaphor and argument.

Poetic Devices : 

Metaphor:

The poem is densely packed with metaphors and conceits comparing love to various creatures (flies, phoenix), objects (candles) and grand concepts (immortality through verse). These metaphors lend love an aura of sacred importance.

Apostrophe:

The speaker rhetorically addresses his critics with "Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?" and future admirers with "Thus invoke us…" personalizing his arguments.

Paradox: 

Paradoxical lines like "We die and rise the same" speak to love's transcendent essence containing opposite truths.

RhetoricalQuestion: 

Rhetorical questions like "What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?" let the speaker present his defense against critics.

Imagery: 

Vivid images of tears overflowing ground, a plague of heats in his veins, and ashes and tombs create layers of metaphorical richness.

Symbolism : 

Love's religious significance is a core symbolic theme, with images of reverence, hermitages, canonization and hymns portraying love as a mystic ideal. For Donne, woman represents not just romantic love but a path to understanding mysteries of the universe, symbolized by the eagle and dove representing unified dichotomies. The contrasted images of candles burning out and the immortal phoenix symbolize love's ability to exist eternally through poetry, beyond death.

Conclusion :

Through baroque poetic complexity and intensity, Donne's poem is a masterful exploration of romantic love's cosmological impact. By fusing profound conceits, vivid biblical and mythological imagery, and paradoxes that capture love's transcendent mysteries, Donne elevates love to the level of a sacred ideal that encompasses all existence.

The speaker's passion and the surreal, vatic metaphors create a sense of love's purity and power in the face of earthly detractors. Donne makes intellectual, emotional and spiritual arguments that love is greater than fleeting concerns like age, wealth or reproach. Ultimately, he envisions poetic immortality for love's all-encompassing truths, to be venerated for enlightening future seekers. For Donne, romantic love reveals the deepest enigmas of human existence in a way that outlives physical monuments. It is a love supreme.