There are two possible interpretations for why the speaker is trying to console his wife in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning." As the title suggests, the speaker is trying to stop his wife from mourning something. It seems that the speaker is either preparing her for his death or for his leaving.

The first stanza of the poem seems to refer to death when the speaker says, "As virtuous men pass mildly away" (line 1). He says he wants them to act according to that scenario, which is calm and subdued. He wants he and his wife to "melt, and make no noise" (line 5) as they part. He tells his wife not to cry or to be upset. He explains over the course of the poem that she should not mourn because they will always be connected to each other. In part of a famous conceit, or extended metaphor, Donne writes,

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.