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Although the subject matter of A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning could be applied to any couple pending separation, according to Izaak Walton, a seventeenth-century biographer, John Donne wrote his poem for his wife on the eve of his departu ....

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... at death. According to the speaker, “virtuous men pass mildly away” (line 1) because the virtue in their lives has assured them of glory and reward in the afterlife; hence, they die in peace without fear and emotion. He suggests that the separation of the lovers be like this separation caused by death. In the second stanza the speaker furthers his comparison for a peaceful separation. “So let us melt, and make no noise” (line 5) refers to the melting of gold by a goldsmith or alchemist. When gold is melted it does not sputter and is therefore quiet. The speaker and his love should not display their private, intimate love as “tear-floods, n ...