John Donne

The Anniversary (Donne)

{{gap|1em}}ALL kings, and all their favourites,
{{gap|1em}}All glory of honours, beauties, wits,

Time-making sun

The sun 'makes time' by creating days—but it's also subject to time, aging a year like everything else. Donne catches the paradox of the timekeeper being timed.

The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
{{gap|1em}}Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
{{gap|1em}}Two graves must hide thine and my corse;

Two graves

If they could share one grave, death wouldn't separate them—so separate burial is what makes death a 'divorce.' Physical fact, metaphysical problem.

{{gap|1em}}If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
{{gap|1em}}But souls where nothing dwells but love

Inmates vs. dwellers

**Inmates** meant temporary lodgers in 1600s. Love owns the soul's house; other thoughts just rent rooms. Legal language for spiritual real estate.

—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.
{{gap|1em}}And then we shall be throughly blest;
{{gap|1em}}But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do

Treason geography

In their two-person kingdom, betrayal can only come from within—no external threats exist. The only coup is infidelity.

Treason to us, except one of us two.
{{gap|1em}}True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again

Threescore math

Psalm 90's biblical lifespan: 'threescore years and ten' (70). They're on year two of their 'reign'—he's calculating how many anniversaries they might reach.

Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Political Metaphor

Donne builds an entire political system out of a relationship. The lovers are kings of a two-person state, princes who recognize each other's sovereignty, rulers of a kingdom where treason means infidelity. This isn't decorative language—it's a working political philosophy.

The metaphor does real work in stanza two: 'as well as other princes, we / Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears.' Even their private kingdom can't escape death's jurisdiction. But notice the reversal: other princes lose power and territory; these lovers only lose their bodies. Their souls 'remove' from graves the way a king might relocate his court.

CONTEXT Donne wrote this around 1595-1600, likely for Anne More, whom he secretly married in 1601. The marriage destroyed his career—her father had him briefly jailed and fired from his job as secretary. The 'we're kings' claim isn't just romantic hyperbole; it's a man insisting that love creates its own legitimacy, its own sovereignty, regardless of social approval or career consequences.

What Doesn't Decay

The poem's central move: everything ages (kings, sun, bodies) except their love, which exists outside time. But Donne doesn't just assert this—he proves it through negation. Their love 'hath no decay,' has 'no to-morrow,' 'no yesterday,' 'never runs from us away.' Four negatives before one positive: it 'truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.'

That final phrase is doing three things at once. First day (creation), last day (apocalypse), everlasting day (eternity). Their love somehow contains all of time by existing outside it—the same day that's always beginning, always ending, always continuing.

The final stanza's 'threescore' reference is Psalm 90:10—the biblical human lifespan of seventy years. He's literally counting: if they can 'add again / Years and years unto years' and reach sixty anniversaries, they'll have spent most of their lives in this private kingdom. 'This is the second of our reign'—he's keeping a ledger, doing mortality math, turning their marriage into a competing timeline against biblical prophecy.