"So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love."
Donne uses a lot of verbal irony in his poems in that he often says more or less than what is meant. The very first line of the poem says "as virtuous men pass mildly away", implying that these men are content with dying. However, it is merely to get the point across. No one is actually okay with dying, but these men are more accepting of it. In the same way, the speaker and his lover, though not happy to part, must know that this is not the end for them because their love is strong. He states that they should skip all of the emotional expressions of goodbyes like "tear-floods" and "sigh-tempests" because they know that it is not the end of their love. These phrases exaggerate the crying and moaning that often occurs during parting in order to make them seem more negative. Tears do not literally come in floods, nor do sighs in tempests. He says that he and his love are not two but one soul. This is of course not literally true, but it is how he feels. And, if they are two, it is in the way that compasses are two (they will always point the same direction) or that feet are two (they always return to being side by side).
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