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Gold

In the sixth stanza, the speaker makes a brief but significant mention of gold (lines 21–24):

     Our two souls therefore, which are one,
        Though I must go, endure not yet
     A breach, but an expansion,
        Like gold to airy thinness beat.

Gold has a twofold symbolic significance in this quatrain. On the one hand, the speaker uses the image of “gold to airy thinness beat” to suggest the possibility of spiritual expansion. Contrary to conceiving of their separation as a “breach,” the speaker insists that any physical distance that may come between him and his lover marks an “expansion” of their love. The “airy thinness” of beaten gold may imply a certain fragility, but only if we read the image literally—which is to say, physically or materially. Instead, the speaker offers the image as a symbol of spiritual beauty. Which brings us to the second layer of gold’s symbolic significance. In the Renaissance science of alchemy, gold was one of the seven metals, which also included copper, iron, lead, mercury, tin, and silver. Among these metals, gold was considered the highest, representing the absolute perfection of matter. For this reason, alchemists symbolically linked gold to the most refined forms of matter—that is, the spiritualized “matter” of the mind and the soul.

Circles

Circles play a significant role in “Valediction,” where they symbolize divine perfection and unity. Circles first show up in their three-dimensional form, as spheres, when the speaker references the Ptolemaic model of the universe (lines 11–12):

     But trepidation of the spheres,
        Though greater far, is innocent.

Ptolemy believed that earth stood at the universe’s center, and out from the earth there radiated a series of nested spheres. The term trepidation specifically names a disturbance that passes through these spheres. Whereas he considered earth a place of mutability and base physicality, the outer spheres were increasingly fixed and divine in their spiritual purity. Donne returns to the spiritual perfection of the circular form in the final three stanzas. There he develops his famous conceit about a compass, which is a tool for drawing circles. When precisely drawn, circles are formally unified and perfectly symmetrical shapes with neither beginning nor end. Donne exploits the circle’s formal perfection in the final stanza (lines 35–36):

     Thy firmness makes my circle just,
        And makes me end where I begun.

The symbolic “compass” of their love will ensure that, on his journey, the speaker traces a circle that “makes me end where I begun”—that is, back with his lover. His use of the word “just” is important here, since it connotes geometrical precision as well as aesthetic perfection and moral appropriateness.

Compass

In the final three stanzas of “Valediction,” the speaker uses a compass to symbolize the connection between the speaker and his lover. As the speaker insists in lines 25–26, this connection ensures their spiritual unity despite their physical separation:

     If they [i.e., our souls] be two, they are two so
        As stiff twin compasses are two

Here, the speaker references the compass, which is a tool used by geometers and mapmakers to draw precise arcs and circles. This tool consists of two legs, which are technically called “compasses.” These legs are attached to each other at one end, creating a hinge that adjusts the distance between them. At the other end, each leg has a foot. The foot on one leg consists of a metal point that marks the center of the circle and doesn’t move. This is “the fixed foot” referenced in line 27, which represents the speaker’s lover. The foot on the second leg consists of a piece of lead that moves around the center at a fixed distance, tracing the circle. This latter foot represents the speaker, who will journey a distance from home. Though the “twin compasses” have separate feet, they are still united in a single tool that symbolically connects them no matter their distance from each other.

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