A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

STEP TWO:

1.      “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” a valediction is a goodbye, and the title implies that the farewell being spoke of is one that the speaker isn’t allowed to be sad about.

2.     In the poem, the speaker is dying and is sharing his last words with someone he loves. The speaker is trying to tell his lover that she shouldn’t be sad because their life together isn’t over, it’s just going to change it’s form and become stronger.

3.     It’s the tone of a dying man trying to convince someone to not mourn this terrible scenario. He is sad, of course, because he will miss his lover, but he is hopeful, and is trying to say that she should be too. He is very sure of himself and what is awaiting him in the afterlife. This is shown when he discusses the expansion of their love and tells her that this isn’t the end, or “a breach”, it’s just a change.

4.     That love knows no bounds.

STEP THREE:

1.     The speaker requests that his lover not be sad when he passes on. He tells her that he doesn’t want her to cry when the time comes because it makes for a messy break, and he doesn’t want that, he just wants her to “…let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move…” He tells her that sadness will ruin their goodbye, which, really, should be a beautiful thing.

2.     The lover is scared that this could be the end for them, but he explains that man cannot know what the afterlife is, therefore she shouldn’t be scared of it. He says that the apprehension toward the thought of death is the source of fear, more so than the afterlife itself.

3.     The force of the Soul Mate Principal, and how you will stay connected to that someone after death.

4.