At the Center of the Sphere

John Donne's use of aubade elements in "The Sun is Rising" and "Break of Day" plays well with his somewhat pessimistic view of English society around him and its awkward collision with natural human emotions. The recurring scene of two lovers waking to the realization that their time is gone seems to be portrayed with different reflections, different emotions, and of course different metaphors every time it appears. The bedroom, as it's portrayed in these poems as well as Elegy 19, is an ideal world where naked bodies are explored, natural beauty is realized and admired, and emotions, which remain tamed in public society, are free to flow wildly. Outside of this sphere, the sun, society, duties, business, and days of anticipation await the lovers as they exit. The female speaker in "Break of Day" best expresses this exhaustion with her lover's busy schedule with the final couplet of the poem, "He which hath business, and makes love doth do/ Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo."
Donne playfully uses the metaphors of geographical exploration and parallels between the female body and a land rich with natural resources in these works. Most blatantly (and maybe chauvinistically) in lines 21-22 of "The Sun is Rising", Donne says that she is the world's nations and he is the world's princes. In Elegy 19 he also refers to his lover as his kingdom, his empire, and (perhaps not very flatteringly) his mine of precious stones. The lover is the newly discovered land which Donne explores, and together they make up this metaphysical world away from the world. This world, special and exclusive to the two lovers, is the center of the universe. It's in this newly created world that Donne (or the speaker) and his lover are free explore eachother's minds, bodies, and hearts.
Mind you this isn't just sex for physical satisfaction, but for spiritual fulfillment. Although these lines are generally blurry but considered to be distinct from eachother, Elegy 19 states in line 34, "As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be,". Donne had a very strong sense of pure, natural beauty which was probably seen as purely sexual by many. But, this ideal world of natural beauty could only exist apart from society's corruption and exploitation. The world that Donne created, at the center of the sun's orbit, was a world made by lovers with love, so that their spirits, unbound, could explore the joys of love together.
However, the sun glimmering in through the curtains in the beginning of "The Sun is Rising" always provides a harsh reminder that life cannot be lived from inside a bed room. Emotions must remain hidden, desires must be suppressed, and business must go on in public society. English society, much unlike the bedroom, was no place for naked love to be expressed.