In the second stanzas of "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," an uncertainty of the depth which John Donne attributes to his reference of the church inspires different hues of meaning.

Beginning with a cry against regret and sadness, Donne declares "Twere profanation of our joys/To tell the laity our love." In effect, the tainting of, and desecration of, a special, private bond occurs in its admittance to a person not of the clergy --"the laity." It is in the exploration of the lines intent in which the fascination and confusion of Donne's conception lies.

As a starting point, there is the conviction that a love relationship does not need proclamation. More specifically, Donne instills the thought that the grieving proclamation of an unwittingly lost love should be kept within the clergy. In the extreme, the second verse of "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" implies the privacy and sacredness characterized by an exchange with a clergyman, that aura which surrounds one in a confessional box.