Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John DonneRead
Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call countryants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses frustration with the sun's intrusion, emphasizing that love transcends time and seasonal boundaries.
In this poem, John Donne portrays the sun as an annoying interruption in the lovers' intimate moment, suggesting that love should not be dictated by the passage of time or external circumstances. He argues that true love remains unaffected by the seasons or hours, highlighting its eternal and universal nature, in contrast to the mundane concerns of time that often govern human activities.
Themes
LoveTimeSeasonsFrustrationSun
In practice
Example use cases
In a romantic poem, one might use this quote to illustrate how love is timeless and unaffected by external interruptions.
More from John Donne
All quotes →Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
John DonneRead
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
John DonneRead
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
John DonneRead
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John DonneRead
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
John DonneRead
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