The Good-Morrow By John Donne

 I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

Rhetorical question — The entire stanza is structured as a series of questions ("Were we not weaned?" / "Or snorted we?"), which Donne then answers himself. This creates the feel of a spoken argument, almost like a debate he's having with the beloved. It draws the reader in.

Extended metaphor (infantile ignorance) — "Weaned," "sucked," "childishly" form a single sustained image: before love, they were like unweaned babies, feeding on crude, simple pleasures without any real understanding of life. This is not three separate images — it is one metaphor held across three lines.

Allusion — "The Seven Sleepers' den" refers to a famous early Christian legend of seven young men of Ephesus who hid in a cave during the Roman persecution of Christians and miraculously slept for over 200 years. The allusion packs enormous weight into a single line: we weren't just asleep, we slept for centuries, unconscious of what real existence meant.

Volta (turn) — "'Twas so; but this..." is the pivot of the stanza. Donne accepts the charge — yes, we were childish and asleep — and then immediately redirects. This quick concede-and-turn is a hallmark of his argumentative style.

Neoplatonic conceit — The final couplet ("'twas but a dream of thee") draws on the Neoplatonic idea that earthly beautiful things are only imperfect shadows of a higher Form. Every woman he desired before was an unconscious, blurry sketch of the one true beloved — his current love is the Ideal that those shadows were pointing toward. This elevates her to something almost metaphysical.

Bawdy pun — "Country pleasures" is almost certainly a double entendre. "Country" (with the first syllable altered) was a crude Elizabethan slang term. Donne signals early that this is a poem about physical as well as spiritual love — he is not pretending to be a pure, courtly lover.

Plain diction for shock — "Which I desired, and got" is deliberately blunt and un-poetic. Donne refuses to dress up the fact that he slept with other women. This honesty makes the compliment that follows — but you are what all of them were dreaming of — far more powerful than if he had been coy.