Break of Day

This is—and is not—a love poem. Surely the two characters are drawn together by love. But Donne does not merely hymn the wonder of love. There is no doubt the two characters in “Break of Day” have spent the night together “hooking up,” to use a euphemism that Donne would not have known. The poem never makes clear the relationship—but given the era’s predisposition to regarding marriage as a brokered contract rather than as a powerful, even sacred expression of love, and given Donne’s own brief fling as a bohemian during his early twenties, the most likely scenario is two lovers rather than spouses, most likely working-class folks given the man’s urgency to get to work. But there might be another reason for his special urgency to get out of the woman’s bed now at the break of dawn—among the responsibilities the man might be attending to may be the return to his wife, suggested by the withering wit of the woman’s closing put-down. The only thing worse than a lover stealing from a shared bed would be a married man seeking out his mistress.

What could make a man even temporarily abandon his sense of responsibilities and his duties? What could make a woman so direct, so petulant in her demand for her lover’s attentions? Love maybe, but definitely physical love.