THE ECSTACY : JOHN DONNE

Where, like a pillow on a bed 

         A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest 

The violet's reclining head, 

         Sat we two, one another's best. 

Our hands were firmly cemented 

         With a fast balm, which thence did spring; 

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread 

         Our eyes upon one double string; 

So to'intergraft our hands, as yet 

         Was all the means to make us one, 

And pictures in our eyes to get 

         Was all our propagation. 

As 'twixt two equal armies fate 

         Suspends uncertain victory, 

Our souls (which to advance their state 

         Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me. 

And whilst our souls negotiate there, 

         We like sepulchral statues lay; 

All day, the same our postures were, 

         And we said nothing, all the day. 

If any, so by love refin'd 

         That he soul's language understood, 

And by good love were grown all mind, 

         Within convenient distance stood, 

He (though he knew not which soul spake, 

         Because both meant, both spake the same) 

Might thence a new concoction take 

         And part far purer than he came. 

This ecstasy doth unperplex, 

         We said, and tell us what we love; 

We see by this it was not sex, 

         We see we saw not what did move; 

But as all several souls contain 

         Mixture of things, they know not what, 

Love these mix'd souls doth mix again 

         And makes both one, each this and that. 

A single violet transplant, 

         The strength, the colour, and the size, 

(All which before was poor and scant) 

         Redoubles still, and multiplies. 

When love with one another so 

         Interinanimates two souls, 

That abler soul, which thence doth flow, 

         Defects of loneliness controls. 

We then, who are this new soul, know 

         Of what we are compos'd and made, 

For th' atomies of which we grow 

         Are souls, whom no change can invade. 

But oh alas, so long, so far, 

         Our bodies why do we forbear? 

They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are 

         The intelligences, they the spheres. 

We owe them thanks, because they thus 

         Did us, to us, at first convey, 

Yielded their senses' force to us, 

         Nor are dross to us, but allay. 

On man heaven's influence works not so, 

         But that it first imprints the air; 

So soul into the soul may flow, 

            Though it to body first repair. 

As our blood labors to beget 

         Spirits, as like souls as it can, 

Because such fingers need to knit 

         That subtle knot which makes us man, 

So must pure lovers' souls descend 

         T' affections, and to faculties, 

Which sense may reach and apprehend, 

         Else a great prince in prison lies. 

To'our bodies turn we then, that so 

         Weak men on love reveal'd may look; 

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, 

         But yet the body is his book. 

And if some lover, such as we, 

         Have heard this dialogue of one, 

Let him still mark us, he shall see 

         Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.