[Poem] THE SUN RISING - A Radiant Challenge to Dawn’s Imposition (AMP)

The Sun Rising - John Donne

/The Sun Rising - John Donne/

A Scornful Salute to the Intruding Dawn

Note: Below is John Donne’s The Sun Rising in its entirety (public domain). Each line is presented twice (original Early Modern English, followed by the identical text) since the poem’s language remains essentially the same in modern usage.

Original (Early Modern English) / Modern English (Identical Text)

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 left’st 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 is 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.

John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” playfully personifies the sun as an intruder upon a pair of blissful lovers. In the poem’s opening lines, the speaker chastises the sun for rudely bursting in and dictating the start of their day, as though time’s authority should not apply when love transcends all mundane measures of clocks and seasons. By labeling the sun a “busy old fool,” Donne sets a tone of affectionate yet audacious defiance.

He then elevates the lovers’ bedroom to a metaphorical universe, suggesting their shared intimacy is more significant than the literal world outside. The second stanza develops this conceit by claiming the sun’s beams could be dismissed with a simple wink—yet the speaker refuses to avert his gaze from his beloved. Earthly treasures and distant lands (like “both th’ Indias of spice and mine”) shrink in importance, dwarfed by the immediacy and magnificence of their love.

In the final stanza, Donne expands on this worldview, proclaiming that his beloved “is all states” and that he is “all princes.” Their bed essentially becomes the center of the cosmos—if the sun truly wants to fulfill its duty of warming the world, it need only shine upon them. By reversing conventional hierarchies—making the cosmic subordinate to the lovers—the poem casts romance as a power that outstrips even the daily inevitability of dawn.

Metaphysical wit runs throughout, mixing grandiose hyperbole with intellectual sophistication. Donne’s trademark style blends direct address, scornful humor, and a cosmic scale for private emotions. In so doing, “The Sun Rising” transforms a commonplace morning scene into a triumph of passion over time and natural law. Such an uplifting, unabashed exaltation of love ensures that this poem remains among Donne’s best-loved and most-quoted works, illustrating how intimate devotion can reshape one’s entire perception of reality.

Key points

• Personifies the sun as an intruder on romantic bliss.
• Elevates the lovers’ room into a microcosm more significant than the external world.
• Showcases Donne’s Metaphysical style: bold conceits, witty argument, and cosmic imagery.
• Asserts that powerful love need not submit to ordinary constraints like time or social hierarchy.