The Sun Rising

John Donne

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 school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
 Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.
She's all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
"The Sun Rising" is a poem written by the English poet
John Donne. Donne wrote a wide range
of social satire, sermons, holy sonnets, elegies, and
love poems throughout his lifetime, and he
is perhaps best known for the similarities between his
erotic poetry and his religious poetry.
Much of his work, including "The Sun Rising," was
published after his death in the 1633
collection Songs and Sonnets. In "The Sun Rising," the
speaker orders the sun to warm his bed
so that he and his lover can stay there all day instead of
getting up to go to work. The poem's
playful use of language and extended metaphor
exemplifies Donne's style across his work,
erotic and religious alike.
 Summary

Hey sun, you old, disruptive busybody, why are

you shining past the windows and
closed curtains to pay an uninvited visit to me and
my girlfriend? Do lovers really have
to structure their schedules around your
movements across the sky? You rude,
inflexible, and insensitive jerk, go scold boys who
are late to school and apprentices
who are sulky about their early morning. Go tell
the king's hunting party that the king
is about to ride out on a hunt, and urge lowly farm
workers to start their harvesting
duties. Love, in all its forms, is above the influence
of seasons and weather. It is also
above the influence of hours, days, and months,
which, unlike love, wear out like old
rags as time passes.
 Why should you think your beams are so
worshipped and strong? I could block them
out by closing my eyes, except that I wouldn't
want to stop looking at my lover that
long. Assuming that her eyes aren't so bright that
they've blinded yours, go check, and
tomorrow evening tell me whether both the East
Indies and West Indies are where you
left them, or whether they are right here next to
me. Ask to see the kings you saw
yesterday, and you will hear that they are all lying
here in this bed.
My lover is every country, and I am every prince.
Nothing else exists. Princes only
pretend to be us; compared to our love, all honor
is a cheap copy, and all wealth is a
futile attempt to attain riches. You, sun, should be
half as glad as we are that the whole
world fits here in the bedroom. Your old age
demands that you take it easy. Because
 your job is to keep the world warm, you can do
your job by keeping us warm. By
shining here on us, you can shine everywhere; this
bed is your center, and the
bedroom walls are the outside boundaries of the
solar system.