This one’s a toughie. As in “Sweetest Love,” Donne imagines every parting as a kind of death. True to form, he takes that “death” as another chance to analyze what it means to be in love. Parting is a kind of test case, then, that allows him a peculiarly intense opportunity for reflection. And the reflection in this case turns to the confusion of selves within a love: confusion in the sense that the two lovers become one, and in the sense that a certain wounding loss of identity also occurs. Donne’s cerebrations are hard to follow, but with some patience and persistence the reader may find that Donne describes very well the power and vulnerability that accompany love. One feels wholly given over to something greater than oneself. At the same time, one feels disintegrated, open to pain and betrayal, almost helpless. There’s more than a hint of bitterness at the end of the poem, but it comes in so late that the earlier analysis (and, oddly, exuberance) doesn’t get eclipsed by it, at least for me.

Here’s “The Legacie,” by John Donne.

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