Daystar and Valediction Forbidding Mourning

¶ … Marriage in "Daystar" and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

The circle is the symbol of eternity, where there is no beginning and no end. As with life, love can also be considered an eternal journey, but viewed from different perspectives in the poems "Daystar" (795-796), by Rita Dove, and "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" (51-52; "Valediction"), by John Donne. The unity of marriage in "Valediction" is prized, with symbolic images of metaphysical elements and circles used to depict the perfection of lovers and an undying love. "Daystar," however, describes the ritual of marriage and the timeless monotony of the burdens that marriage presents. Thus, marriage can be premised in perfection, as in "Valediction," but the cycle of the commitment between two lovers, like in "Daystar," can be stagnant during the journey.

Valediction" shows the parallel between the circle of life and death, and the relationship between lovers, whom must eventually leave each other as they had met. In the image of the circle, "Thy firmness makes my circle just" (l. 35), establishes that the union of two lovers is necessary and perfect. The metaphysical comparison between the mourning of a dying man and the separation of two lovers before a journey further complements the metaphor that love is timeless, but with a physical beginning and end. Donne writes, "So let us melt and make no noise" (l. 5), implying the quiet separation between man and his soul, or the division in a love relationship. While "Dull sublunary lovers' love" (l. 13), a metaphysical analysis of immature or imperfect love, is expressed, "But we by a love so much refined...Careless eyes, lips, and hands to miss" (l. 17, 20) shows Donne's sense of pure connection between lovers with fully developed souls. Thus Donne's "Valediction" describes a fantasy love, free of flaws or breaks in the circle, where the purity of the relationship exists between two perfect lovers. Dove's "Daystar" contrasts this image by portraying the realistic relationship between a man and a woman, through the toils and struggles of everyday married life.

The theme of men and women bound in marriage in "Daystar" describes the resentment of the sacrifices that marriage and family can bring as the length of the circle darkens the path that exists from the beginning to the end. The woman in "Daystar" wanted a "little more room for thinking" (l.1), establishing that the monotony of a mother's burdens in satisfying her children and husband sufficiently lend her to imagine that when "she closed her eyes she'd only see her own vivid blood" (l. 12-14), or the sense of life being drained from her. Her precious time alone was spent dreaming of "building a palace" (l. 20), where she could enjoy a few moments outside of her reality, imagining a state of bliss and perfection. This was a "place that was hers for an hour -- where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day" (l. 24-27), and her burdens that sprang from marriage could be forgotten. When her husband, Thomas, "rolled over and lurched into her" (l. 22), Dove reveals the commitments of marriage, such as the sexual relationship that exists, as an expected outcome regardless of the woman's sentiment. Thus, this view of lovers is far from the idealized view in "Valediction," where the man and woman in "Daystar" simply commit to the requirements of the relationship.