The Speaker

The speaker of the poem is an unnamed lover, presumably male, who scorns the sun for waking him up and forcing him to part from his beloved for the day. The speaker is, like many of Donne's first-person speakers, playful, manipulative, and argumentative. He attempts to disparage the sun in order to elevate his relationship with his beloved, interpreting his argument as logical and necessary. Like other speakers in Donne's more erotic poems, this speaker is confident and self-aware, adding a playful and flirtatious element to an otherwise largely critical tone.

The Sun

The sun is the addressee of the poem, though it is not granted its own voice. Instead, the speaker attacks the sun for its interruption of his morning with his beloved and suggests that the sun is not so powerful as other people think. The sun becomes the recipient of the speaker's frustration at...