Aire and Angels
John Donne
1572 to 1631
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame,
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
Love must not be, but take a body too,
Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe,
Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare,
Then as an Angell, face, and wings
Just such disparitie
'Twixt womens love, and mens will ever bee.
I bid Love aske, and now
But since my soule, whose child love is,
So thy love may be my loves spheare;
With wares which would sinke admiration,
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Before I knew thy face or name;
And so more steddily to have gone,
More subtile then the parent is,
And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow.
I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught,
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke upon
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie,
Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
That it assume thy body, I allow,
Angells affect us oft, and worship'd bee;
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;