Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
               Late school boys and sour prentices,
         Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride
         Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

In lines 5–10, the speaker hurls abusive language at the sun, whose early-morning incursion into his bedroom has either woken him or disturbed a tryst with his lover. Annoyed, the speaker wants to tell the sun off. The speaker’s invective is amusing for the way it addresses the sun as a nosy and irritating old fool with nothing better to do. Scolding the sun, the speaker instructs it to go attend to duties that are more pressing than peeping into his bedroom. The sun should help make sure students get to class on time, or alert agricultural workers (“country ants”) that it’s time to go tend their fields. These are worldly activities that require the kind of punctuality that a “pedantic wretch” like the sun represents. But for lovers like the speaker and his mistress, such strict adherence to time makes no sense. As the speaker puts it, “Love . . . no season knows no clime.” Whereas the sun is responsible for keeping track of the “hours, days, [and] months,” love transcends these “rags of time.” Here, the speaker makes a strong claim for the primacy of love over all other things—including the immutable motions of celestial bodies like the sun.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
               Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long

These lines (11–14) come from the second stanza, where the speaker shifts into a somewhat more playful mood. Instead of continuing his earlier abuse, the speaker now asserts his supremacy over the sun. He starts by appearing to compliment the sun for the power of its “beams” of light, “so reverend and strong.” Then, in an amusing reversal, the speaker insists that he, a mere human, “could eclipse and cloud [those beams] with a wink.” His use of the word eclipse here is clever, since it specifically references the blocking of one celestial body by another. However powerful the sun may be, the speaker can overshadow it. Of course, the speaker’s boast is an empty one, for he’d damage his sight if he literally stared into the sun. And in any case, he implies that he won’t actually “wink” at the sun, since doing so would require him to look away from his lover. This latter admission makes it clear that the speaker’s words aren’t in fact directed toward the sun at all. Instead, he’s attempting to impress and flatter his lover.

               If her eyes have not blinded thine,
               Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
         Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
         Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.

In lines 15–18, the speaker continues to flatter his lover through his comic address to the sun. In the lines immediately prior to these, the speaker declared that he could “eclipse” the sun’s powerful beams with a mere “wink.” Here he implies that his lover has an even more powerful gaze, which wouldn’t simply overshadow the sun but leave it “blinded.” But perhaps more important than this passing bit of flattery is the speaker’s first hint at the idea that his bedroom is a microcosm of the world. He introduces this idea through his reference to “th’ Indias of spice and mine,” which he suggests have been absorbed into his room and now “lie here with me.” The India of “spice” refers to East India, whereas the India of “mine” (i.e., gold) refers to the West Indies. Both regions represented important trade interests for England, and in Donne’s own lifetime the British Crown would make moves to occupy these territories and so begin to amass its great empire. The speaker imaginatively annexes this burgeoning British Empire to his own bedroom kingdom.

               She's all states, and all princes, I,
               Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

In lines 21–24, which open the third and final stanza, the speaker further develops the idea of his bedroom as a microcosm of the world. Specifically, he pursues the notion that his lover is a symbolic amalgamation of “all states” (that is, all nations), and that he is a similar amalgamation of “all princes.” As the prince of all nations, he is thus the ruler of all realms. The speaker’s metaphor here also has a subtle sexual innuendo, since he implies that he (figured as a prince) has the final authority over his lover’s body (figured as a nation or territory). In addition to this playful innuendo, the speaker also makes a more serious claim about the authority of the love he shares with his mistress. So infatuated is he that he claims the all-importance of their affection: “Nothing else is.” This claim leads the speaker to a theatrical metaphor in which he and his lover are the only things that are real. Everyone else merely attempts to “play” them. Likewise, all moral virtues (e.g., “honor”) and material luxury (e.g., “wealth”) are the counterfeit products of mimicry and alchemy.

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