The occasion of John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ” seems to be parting. Walton asserts that the poem was penned in 1611 when Donne was planning for a tour of France with the Drury family. Parting here is pictured as a miniature enactment of death. The poet refers to an untheatrical form of death where the dying mildly give away to death. Some times death may be anticipated; nevertheless at times it comes as an intruder in spite of one saying:”No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Petrarchan conceits were deliberately employed by the poet to parody their Elizabethan use. Moreover, the term ‘melt’ may also signify a change in physical state. Just as the dead body decays, the bond between both the lovers shall dissolve. He introduces the three elements-air, water and earth to show that these elements constitute the circle of life and death on earth. The air is referred to in ‘sigh-tempests’, water in ‘tear-floods’ and earth with reference to earthquakes. The poet bringing on all these natural calamities seems to imply their parting is of less consequence as compared to these.…