means beyond So metaphysical means beyond the physical This means that metaphysical poetry deals with ideas that go beyond the physical world such as spiritual love the soul faith death and God This type of poetry is full of wit conceit and logical argument We also find a blend of passion and thought in metaphysical poems John Donne uses these qualities in The Canonization Spiritual Love In The Canonization Donne shows the spiritual love between the speaker and his beloved The speaker of the poem is an aged lover He deeply loves his beloved He believes his love is pure spiritual and even holy He says that his love makes him and his beloved one soul He feels that their deep love will make them saints of love This theme of spiritual love is a strong quality of metaphysical poetry Wit and Logic Arguments Donne uses wit and logical arguments in this poem which are metaphysical qualities Wit is the ability to write things that are clever and funny At the beginning of the poem the speaker tells a friend not to disturb him loving He asks his friend to talk about anything else like his old age or health but let him love He argues that his love harms no one He asks What merchant s ships have my sighs drowned His sighs do not drown ships His tears do not flood any land This entire part shows Donne s wit and logical arguments Here the speaker is using clever and funny arguments to prove that his love does not disturb anyone Use of Conceit Conceit is another dominant feature of metaphysical poetry A conceit is a strange and far-fetched comparison between two very different things It is a surprising comparison that can run across many lines Donne uses many conceits in this poem For example he compares the lovers to saints The speaker says All shall approve Us canonized for Love Here the lovers are not real saints but their love is so pure and holy that they become canonized saints People should pray to learn loving like them In the third stanza the lovers are compared to Phoenix Phoenix is a mythical bird that dies and rises again from its own ashes This comparison means that even if the lovers die their love cannot Their love is eternal Blend of Passion and Thought Another important part of metaphysical poetry is the blend of passion and logical thoughts Donne joins these qualities in the speaker s arguments The speaker argues that even if their love story is not written in history books their love story will live through sonnets and poems He says We ll build in sonnets pretty rooms This argument is clever and thoughtful but it also comes from deep emotion This blend is a metaphysical quality Dramatic Tone Metaphysical poems are often written in a dramatic tone The Canonization begins in the same way with this line For God s sake hold your tongue and let me love This is like a dramatic conversation Here the speaker is an aged lover He is trying to say people should not disturb or insult him for loving For these reasons The Canonization is a perfect example of a metaphysical love poem by John Donne The poem is based on spiritual love and it uses the dominant metaphysical qualities This love poem proves that Donne is truly a great metaphysical poet