The Compass in Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne

              AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
              And whisper to their souls to go,
              Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
              "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

              So let us melt, and make no noise,               
              No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
              'Twere profanation of our joys
              To tell the laity our love.

              Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
              Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
              But trepidation of the spheres,
              Though greater far, is innocent.

              Dull sublunary lovers' love
              —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
              Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
              The thing which elemented it.

              But we by a love so much refined,
              That ourselves know not what it is,
              Inter-assurèd of the mind,
              Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

              Our two souls therefore, which are one,
              Though I must go, endure not yet
              A breach, but an expansion,
              Like gold to aery thinness beat.

              If they be two, they are two so
              As stiff twin compasses are two ;
              Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
              To move, but doth, if th' other do.

              And though it in the centre sit,
              Yet, when the other far doth roam,               
              It leans, and hearkens after it,
              And grows erect, as that comes home.

              Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
              Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
              Thy firmness makes my circle just,
              And makes me end where I begun.

In the last half of this poem Donne creates a beautiful image. He has to leave his wife for a while (“I must go”), but the reason this poem forbids her from mourning is that their love is deeper than separation can affect: instead of cutting their relationship in two, their separation spreads that love further (“not yet / A breach, but an expansion”). 

And here comes the description of the imagery of their relationship: it is of a (geometry) compass, which has two points that are connected in the middle, so that no matter how far one point travels, it always comes back full circle to the other point.

I remember discussing this poem in a literature class in college, and the professor was, I think, a little too hard on poor John. 

“He’s voicing the elitist social conventions of the British class structure.”
“He thinks he, as a cleric, is more able to love than the peasantry.”

This idea was based on the line, “’Twere profanation of our joys / To tell the laity of our love.” I think this interpretation is a little too zealous to find “historical social evils” and condemn them, rather than keeping in consideration the poem’s intended audience.

After all, this is a poem written by a man leaving on a trip. His wife is, understandably, saddened by their separation—maybe even a little afraid that something will happen to him on his journey (it’s not like he had a cell phone to call and reassure her). This poem basically says, “Hey, our love is not some shallow thing that dies out as soon as we’re not in the same room. It’s deep and pure and strong, and it will keep us connected over all the distances that separate us.”

Okay, now that you’ve gotten your dose of sentimentality, you can go out and enjoy your day. Maybe tell your true love that they’re “the fix’d foot of our relationship compass.”