The Sun Rising

The poem contrasts time, represented by the sun, and the condition of eternity, in which the two lovers live. This is most apparent in Stanza 1. In Line 4, the speaker implies that the “seasons” of lovers are not governed by the movements of the sun, which mark the passage of time. He takes up and clarifies the same thought in Line 9. It turns out that lovers have no seasons; they are not subject to the laws of time and change, but create their own world operating under entirely different conditions. They live in a kind of eternal present so their love cannot be measured in “hours, days, months, which are the rags of time” (Line 10). Their love belongs to an altogether different category, and the use of the word “rags” (Line 10) to characterize time suggests the inadequacy, even the shabbiness, of time as compared to the pristine, timeless world inhabited by the lovers. This is one reason the speaker has such a mocking manner to the sun: Because the sun is the measure of time, it cannot know the eternity in which the lovers live, and therefore can be treated with less respect than the lovers upon whom it shines.