another category of startling comparative images, referring to the motions or changesof the earth and spheres. Donne’s contemporaries believed that the heavens wereperfect(reflecting the perfection of God). Everything “sublunary”-- below the moon, on this earth-- was imperfect, subject to decay and death. Furthermore, the planets moving in orbit around theearth in the geocentric, earth-centred Ptolemaic view of the universe were attached to spheres ofcrystal that often moved or shook (Damrosch et al. 238-9). In line 6, the “tear-floods” and“sigh-tempests move” refers to the moving of the earth. In the third stanza, the speaker againrefers to the unrefined love of ordinary people in contrast with the love between he and his lady.The upheavals in the lives of ordinary lovers on earth are earthquakes (“Moving of th’earth”)that bring “harms and fears” (line 9). In contrast, in a more refined love such as that between thespeaker and his lady, any disturbance is above the reach of such earthly upheavals. It is like thefar-off trembling in the heavens. It is as if their love resided in the heavens, among the crystalspheres of the Ptolemaic universe. Even when there is “trepidation” or trembling of the spheres,it is “innocent” -- it will cause no harm or damage in the world below (lines 11-12). Donnecontinues to refer to the Ptolemaic universe in the fourth and fifth stanzas. In the fourth stanza,ordinary earth-bound lovers are caught up in the physical presence of the other person, whichlike all material things in this “sublunary” sphere below the moon, is subject to change anddecay (line 13). Their “soul is sense” and “cannot admit absense” (lines 14-15) because the onlyway to express their love is through their five senses. Their relationship depends on the physicalact of love, which cannot occur in the absense...
