WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Good-Morrow

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

Today, Erika Kyba reads John Donne's "The Good-Morrow," which meditates on the unity of lovers, as well as the virtues needed for romantic love to endure.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading John Dunn's The Good Morrow. This is a poem about unity between lovers. Dunn imagines that together he and his beloved make up an entirely new world and that they each represent one of its hemispheres. This creative imagery explores how lovers remain individuals yet also come together as one. Dunn prizes this new world comprised of him and his lover as the best that there is.

He asks, where can we find two better hemispheres without sharp north, without declining west? North is often associated with cold and harsh climates, and sharp is associated with division. Dunn's word choice then suggests that he and his beloved will never grow divided or cold to one another. Furthermore, the West in Dunn's day was often associated with vice and evil, whereas Christ, was born in the east, Adam and Eve were expelled to the west of the Garden of Eden. So Dunn is imagining this new world with his lover as completely free from the sins that so often cause love to decline. In fact, he believes that it's impossible for the pair of them to slacken in their love for each other. Why? Because in their union, Dunn writes, they are mixed equally.

In scripture, marriage is understood as a man and woman coming together and becoming one flesh. to Dunn, this means that there must be a kind of loving equality present, rather than one personality dominating the other. He believes that man and woman, ideally, love alike, delighting in each other equally. If two lovers are not mixed equally, perhaps if one party always insists on his own way, or if one feels the need to conceal parts of herself rather than share them with the beloved, then Dunn believes that the union runs the risk of dying. But he has no such fears for his own love, He actually can't even imagine going back to how his life was before getting involved with this woman. He begins the poem by saying that he wonders what the pair of them did before they loved each other,

as if true life only began once they found one another. With all that said, let's dive in. The Good Morrow by John Dunn. I wonder by my troth, what thou and I did till we loved. Were we not weaned till then, but sucked on country pleasures childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den? Twas so, but this all pleasure's fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see which I desired and got,

T'was but a dream of thee, And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear, For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room and everywhere. Let's see discoverers to new worlds have gone. Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown. Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine and mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest. Where can we find two better hemispheres, without shark north, without declining west? Whatever dies was not mixed equally. If our two loves be one, or thou and I, love so alike, but none do slacken. None can die. You've been listening to the poetry fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following The Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube,

or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to The Poetry Fix at gmail.com. Join me next week, and we'll be reading W.B. Yates' Down by the Sally Gardens.