John Donne (1572-1631)
The Ecstasy
1Where, like a pillow on a bed
2 A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
3The violet's reclining head,
4 Sat we two, one another's best.
5Our hands were firmly cemented
6 With a fast balm, which thence did spring;
7Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
8 Our eyes upon one double string;
9So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
10 Was all the means to make us one,
11And pictures in our eyes to get
12 Was all our propagation.
13As 'twixt two equal armies fate
14 Suspends uncertain victory,
15Our souls (which to advance their state
16 Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me.
17And whilst our souls negotiate there,
18 We like sepulchral statues lay;
19All day, the same our postures were,
20 And we said nothing, all the day.
21If any, so by love refin'd
22 That he soul's language understood,
23And by good love were grown all mind,
24 Within convenient distance stood,
25He (though he knew not which soul spake,
26 Because both meant, both spake the same)
27Might thence a new concoction take
28 And part far purer than he came.
29This ecstasy doth unperplex,
30 We said, and tell us what we love;
31We see by this it was not sex,
32 We see we saw not what did move;
33But as all several souls contain
34 Mixture of things, they know not what,
35Love these mix'd souls doth mix again
36 And makes both one, each this and that.
37A single violet transplant,
38 The strength, the colour, and the size,
39(All which before was poor and scant)
40 Redoubles still, and multiplies.
41When love with one another so
42 Interinanimates two souls,
43That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
44 Defects of loneliness controls.
45We then, who are this new soul, know
46 Of what we are compos'd and made,
47For th' atomies of which we grow
48 Are souls. whom no change can invade.
49But oh alas, so long, so far,
50 Our bodies why do we forbear?
51They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are
52 The intelligences, they the spheres.
53We owe them thanks, because they thus
54 Did us, to us, at first convey,
55Yielded their senses' force to us,
56 Nor are dross to us, but allay.
57On man heaven's influence works not so,
58 But that it first imprints the air;
59So soul into the soul may flow,
60 Though it to body first repair.
61As our blood labors to beget
62 Spirits, as like souls as it can,
63Because such fingers need to knit
64 That subtle knot which makes us man,
65So must pure lovers' souls descend
66 T' affections, and to faculties,
67Which sense may reach and apprehend,
68 Else a great prince in prison lies.
69To'our bodies turn we then, that so
70 Weak men on love reveal'd may look;
71Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
72 But yet the body is his book.
73And if some lover, such as we,
74 Have heard this dialogue of one,
75Let him still mark us, he shall see
76 Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.
Notes
1] Strictly, an ecstasy is a mystical condition in which the soul escapes the body and attains the vision of God; in more common Renaissance usage, the power of the soul to transcend the body: ''a departing and secession and suspension of the soul'' (Donne).
9] intergraft: as with interinanimates of line 42, the emphasis is on reciprocal force.
11-12] seeing their images in each other's eyes: "looking babies."
32] what did move: what was the cause of our love.
33] several: separate.
37] transplant: transplanted.
44] Defects of loneliness: weakness of separateness.
47] atomies: atoms.
51-52] In the Christian-Ptolemaic astronomical system each of the nine spheres was ruled by an "intelligence" or angel.
53-56] Souls owe bodies thanks because bodies convey (bring together) bodies and souls and are not dross (scum thrown off from metals in melting) but alloy, mixture. In scholastic philosophy the force or function of the soul is perception; "sense" is the function of the body, which has been yielded. MSS (none autograph) and printed text give different readings in lines 52 and 55.
57-58] The heavenly influence of the stars and planets operates through the air.
61-64] "The spirits in a man ... are the thin and active part of the blood ... of a kind of middle nature, between soul and body ... to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body, and so there is a man'' (Donne).
63] such: souls.
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 1.172.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/3
Rhyme: ababcdcd ...
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