Aire and Angels
John Donne
1572 to 1631
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Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I thy face or name;
So in a voice, so a shapelesse flame,
Angells affect us oft, and worship'd bee;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soule, whose child love is,
Takes limmes of flesh, and could nothing doe,
More subtile then the parent is,
must not be, but take a body too,
therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love aske, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.
thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so steddily to have gone,
With wares which would sinke admiration,
I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,
Ev'ry thy for love to worke upon
Is much too much, fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
as an Angell, face, and wings
Of aire, not as it, yet pure doth weare,
So thy love be my loves spheare;
Just such disparitie
As twixt Aire and Angells puritie,
'Twixt womens love, and will ever bee.