In his poem `The Broken Heart', John Donne takes a relatively simple idea - that love destroys the heart, and transforms it into a series of elaborate metaphors and imagery. Each stanza personifies love from a different angle, first comparing it to the plague, then describing it as a monster that destroys human beings. The third stanza becomes more specific as Donne addresses his lover and recalls the moment when love personally destroyed his heart. The last stanza serves as a moral for the poem; after heartbreak the heart remains intact, somewhat like the shattered remains of a broken mirror, able to reflect emotions such as warmth and affection, but no longer love.

The opening stanza establishes the basis of the poem - that love destroys the heart. Donne states that love can `devour' ten men in an hour, and compares the swiftness of love to the speed...