Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 25-32
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.
- It's not a total loss, it looks like.
- The speaker picks up his figurative description of losing his heart by saying that it's not possible to totally destroy something without a trace ("nothing can to nothing fall") (25).
- Similarly, no place—like your empty chest after your heart is smashed—can be totally empty.
- The good news is that the speaker thinks that he still has all the pieces of his obliterated heart in his chest ("breast"), even though they're just lying all over the place, not united ("they be not unite") (28).
- The speaker then continues this metaphor of his heart as broken glass. By doing so, we can tell you that Donne is moving into conceit territory here. A conceit is an extended metaphor that brings two unusual things together—like the human heart and some broken glass.
- Just like a pile of busted glass shards, this conceit goes, the speaker's heart has a lot of little pieces (metaphorical "rags" and "lesser faces") (30) that can feel things on a smaller scale ("like, wish, and adore") (31).
- Sadly, though, it can't feel anything so enormous and all-consuming as love anymore.
- It looks like the speaker's original love for "thee" totally destroyed any chance he had of feeling the same way for anyone else ("after one such love, can love no more") (32).
- "Way to go, 'thee,'" he's essentially saying. "You busted up my heart so completely that it will never love the same way again"—sniff, sniff.