The Anniversary by John Donne
Analysis
"The Anniversary" is a poem written by John Donne. This poem talks about the anniversary of Donne and his love. He begins by stating that as the years go by his love only grows. The second stanza speaks of how even after death, they will still be together. The third stanza speaks of how they feel of royalty just by being together.
This three stanza poem has ten lines in each stanza. It has the rhyming structure of AABBCCDDEE, also known as rhyming couplets. There isn't a set structure on how many syllables are in each line. It's mostly put together by roughly the same amount of syllables and, of course, the rhymes.
Poem
The Anniversary All kings, and all their favourites, All glory of honours, beauties, wits, 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, 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. Two graves must hide thine and my corse; 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; But souls where nothing dwells but love —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. And then we shall be throughly blest; 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 to us, except one of us two. True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.
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