The Circle of Souls in John Donne’s A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning Why would one wish to forbid that which comes most naturally at the instant of separation? The act of mourning is not solely directed towards the outside, it consoles the self, by following what has been proscribed we attempt to bring back to our lives a semblance of the order that existed before the loss. To mourn is to withdraw from the world. However, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” is not actually about death, but rather a separation. The poet, John Donne, engages in a didactic lesson to show the parallel between a positive way to meet death and a posi