Music: "Orpheus Ed Euridice" by Tom Fahy

The Anniversary
ALL kings, and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay ;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse ;
If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas ! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears ;
But souls where nothing dwells but love
—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

And then we shall be throughly blest ;
But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign.

The Anniversary is one of John Donne’s early love poetries. The purpose of his love poetries are to focus on how important he sees his love and to show how much he treasures his times with his loved one. The Anniversary is no different as it takes a focus upon the longevity of the love between him and his lover. In this poem, Donne uses poetic devices such as alliteration, consistent rhyme scheme, variation from the iambic pentameter and imperative opening to accumulate his ideas and so to add emphasis to them. Unlike much other poetry by Donne, The Anniversary does not have a conceit, but rather than using a conceit to hyperbolise key ideas, Donne uses very grand comparisons to do so.

The Anniversary is structured by three stanzas, each following the rhyming scheme of aabbccdddd. The structure shows the confidence and a lack of doubt in his argument. His argument being his love for his partner is stronger and grander than the royalties, that even the sun will age but their love will not. We as readers also see continuous build up in his confidence within his argument. This shown by the accumulation of syllables through any of the stanzas. For example, throughout the first stanza, the number of syllables in each line builds in this way – 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 – then it goes back down to 8 when he speaks of “Only our love hath no decay” – which may show that he is less sure about this statement, but with its short length, the emphasis becomes bigger, so the accumulation is not broken. The number of syllables continues to be in the form of the iambic pentameter until the last line where he is most sure about himself – where there are 12 syllables. The other two stanzas follow a similar pattern. The argument that Donne attempts to build is, no doubt, their love will not decay. He compares their love with the sun which represents time in the first stanza. He says that time is now a year older from when the lovers first met, but their love has never deteriorated even whilst everything draws to their destruction as time passes. There is also a use of paradox in the first stanza and along with inversion. The paradox is as seen in “Running it never runs from us away” which also contains the use of inversion to emphasise the ‘us’ in the line. Paradox also exists throughout the poem, that even though through time everything will become less ordered, and everything will move towards their destruction, it is relationship that remains the same.

Donne furthers his argument in the second stanza in a similar way as the first. Donne suggests that even death cannot deteriorate the love between him and his lover. Donne suggests what a prince may be, and that even a prince will die. And when he and his lover die, their souls will continue their everlasting love.

Donne’s confidence comes to its highest point in the last stanza. He compares his love to even the most royal of the royalties – kings. He confidently states that on this earth, the couple are kings and no one else can be such kings for no one else has love as strong as such. Compared to kings, only two people can do treason to this love they have, whilst many can do treasons to kings. And so their love keeps them safe. The second last line uses the repetition of time just like in the last line of the first stanza. “Years and years unto years” as well as “first, last, everlasting day”. To finalise his argument, he says that his argument extends beyond just this poem – and so it is not finished just like his love – that there are threescore. 

http://z3.invisionfree.com/SHINSENGUMI/ar/t2185.htm

Mark Arellano