Hello and welcome to The Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Thursday, March 11th.

And tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. I will have been married to the Scott White for 17 years.

I can't wait to celebrate. And in honor of this very special occasion, I'm going to read for you a love poem.

The poet is John Dunn, the great English

metaphysical poet and Anglican cleric. John Dunn lived from 1572 to 1631. He is now considered to be one of

the greatest poets in the English language and the premier metaphysical poet in history.

The metaphysical poets are known for a couple of things. One is the complexity of their poems that

explore really deep human issues like love and death and salvation and the nature and reality

of God, that complex relationship

between divine love and human love, that kind of thing. And they're also known for a formal

aspect of their poetry, which is the use of the conceit, which is a very long metaphor that's used throughout a poem to explore a complex

idea. And you're going to hear a couple of conceits in this poem that I'm going to read for you today,

and I will talk about them after I read it. So this poem is called The Good Morrow, and this is how it goes.

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 pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, which I desired and got,

twas 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 sites' controls,

and makes one little room in 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.

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