It's understandable why this poem was never published during Donne's lifetime. It's flagrantly sexual, irreverent, and entirely inappropriate, especially considering the time period in which it was written (England around 1633). This isn't even really a poem about love at all; it's a "lust poem." There isn't any description of the mistress except her physical appearance, which we all know the narrator is completely enthralled by. At any rate, this poem is certainly not one to be expected from an ordained Anglican priest, which Donne was.
At the beginning of the poem, the narrator makes it clear that he wants his mistress to undress and get in bed with him; he begins by explaining his problem ("Until I labour, I in labour lie," a double entendre referencing a certain state of a certain part of his anatomy), then proceeds to go through a list of garments he wants her to remove, making some kind of witty and suggestive comment about each one as he does so. For example,
"Off with that happy busk, which I envy, That still can be, and still can stand so nigh." (11-12)
A "busk" is another word for a corset, so the narrator is asking his mistress to take off her corset and simultaneously remarking that he's envious of it because it gets to stand so close to her breasts all the time. This comical command is indicative of the tone of the rest of the list: he goes from her head (coronet) to her toes (shoes), then says he knows that she's an angel and not a demon by the fact that it's not his hair that's standing on end, but ... something else. He also references "Mahomet's Paradise," which is Muhammad's idea of heaven: a beautiful place in which a man is surrounded by seventy-two virgins. The symbolism is obvious. At this point, the reader might be unsure whether the poem can get any more awkward. Fret not, dear reader. It can.
The narrator goes on to ask his mistress to "license his roving hands, and let them go," followed by the particular directions he wants his hands to wander. After some more uncomfortable analogies, including comparing his mistress's body to the vast uncharted lands of America, he begins to weave in a little of Donne's trademark metaphysics. Yes, the final long stanza is about how women appear to men as mysteries that can be revealed to a select few, but it also has an interesting note on souls. In his praise, the narrator remarks that souls can only experience true joy when freed from their bodies, which is a notably Neoplatonic concept. Of course, he then compares that to the body, which can only experience true joy when stripped of its clothing, so who knows how seriously that line was intended. The poem ends with a disingenuous call for the mistress to disrobe, since the narrator has already done so. Insofar as a poem from seventeenth-century England can end with a wink, this one certainly does.
