The Speaker

The speaker of "The Relic" is a young man who thinks about the way he and his beloved will be interpreted by a future society. He imagines that a grave digger will break open his grave for another body (a common practice in Donne's time) and have his and his lover's remains declared relics by the Catholic church. The speaker straddles the line between earnest declarations of love for his lady and ironic critiques of the Catholic church's veneration of saints.

The Beloved

Most of the poem is addressed to the speaker's lover as he speaks directly to her about how their remains will be used after being discovered. He imagines that a piece of her hair is tied around his wrist as a way of connecting them in the afterlife, but that in the future this small token will be interpreted as a reason to make...