John Donne (1572-1631)
Air and Angels
1Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee,
2Before I knew thy face or name;
3So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
4Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be;
5 Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
6Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
7 But since my soul, whose child love is,
8Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
9 More subtle than the parent is
10Love must not be, but take a body too;
11 And therefore what thou wert, and who,
12 I bid Love ask, and now
13That it assume thy body, I allow,
14And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
15Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
16And so more steadily to have gone,
17With wares which would sink admiration,
18I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;
19 Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon
20Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
21 For, nor in nothing, nor in things
22Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
23 Then, as an angel, face, and wings
24Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,
25 So thy love may be my love's sphere;
26 Just such disparity
27As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,
28'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.
Notes
13] assume: take on.
23-24] In scholastic thought angels are incorporeal, but "assume" a body of air, the least corporeal of the elements, when they appear to men.
24] it: angel.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: John Donne, Poems, by J. D. With elegies on the authors death (M. F. for J. Marriot, 1633). MICF no. 556 ROBA. Facs. edn. Menston: Scolar Press, 1969. PR 2245 A2 1633A. STC 7045.
First publication date:
1633
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 3RP 1.177.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/3
Rhyme: abbabacdcddeee
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