John Donne

Break of Day (Donne)

'TIS true, 'tis day ; what though it be?
O, wilt thou therefore rise from me?

Reversing the logic

The speaker flips cause and effect—we didn't go to bed because it got dark, so why get up because it's light? Love, not the sun, should dictate their schedule.

Why should we rise because 'tis light?
Did we lie down because 'twas night?
Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.
Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

Light as witness

Light can only see, not testify. Even if it could speak, the worst it could say is that she wants to stay with the man who has her heart and honor—no scandal there.

If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say,
That being well I fain would stay,
And that I loved my heart and honour so
That I would not from him, that had them, go.
Must business thee from hence remove?
O ! that's the worst disease of love,
The poor, the foul, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
He which hath business, and makes love, doth do

Business as adultery

A man who divides attention between work and love commits the same wrong as a married man pursuing another woman. The simile makes ambition a form of infidelity.

Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Female Speaker

This is Donne's only poem spoken by a woman. The voice is unmistakable—she's the one arguing to stay in bed, defending her desire, and complaining about his work obligations. CONTEXT In Donne's other aubades (dawn poems), like "The Sun Rising," the male speaker dismisses the sun and celebrates staying with his lover. Here, the woman uses similar arguments but reveals something different: she's trying to convince a man who's already mentally left.

The poem's power comes from what she doesn't say directly. When she imagines light speaking, she frames it as defending her virtue: "being well I fain would stay, / And that I loved my heart and honour so." She's preemptively answering an accusation—that staying makes her shameful. The fact that she feels compelled to defend herself this way suggests the social stakes for women were different than for men.

The final stanza drops the playful tone entirely. "Business" becomes the real enemy, worse than poverty, ugliness, or falseness. A man who "makes love" while thinking about work commits the same betrayal as adultery. The comparison stings because it reveals her actual complaint: he's not really present with her, even when he's physically there.

Light vs. Love Logic

The opening rhetorical questions set up the poem's inversion of natural order. Most people rise at dawn because that's what bodies do, what work requires, what's normal. The speaker systematically dismantles this logic: > 'TIS true, 'tis day; what though it be? She grants the fact but denies its relevance.

The phrase "in despite of light" (line 6) echoes "in spite of darkness" (line 5), creating a parallel structure that makes love the constant and light/darkness irrelevant variables. This isn't just romantic—it's philosophical. She's arguing that human will and emotion should override natural cycles. It's a radical claim wrapped in bedroom banter.

Donne's legal training shows in the argumentation. The speaker builds her case like a lawyer: establish the principle (love brought us together regardless of darkness), apply it consistently (so light shouldn't separate us), then call a hostile witness (light itself would defend me). The logic is airtight, which makes the poem's failure—he's leaving anyway—more painful.