1633
THE ECSTASY
by John Donne
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE ECSTASY
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Where, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best;
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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;
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So to' intergraft our hands, as yet
Was all our means to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
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As 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls, (which to advance their state,
Were gone out), hung 'twixt her, and me.
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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.
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If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
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He (though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, not spake the same)
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
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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:
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But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things, they knew not what,
Love, these mixed souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this and that.
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A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size,
(All which before was poor, and scant,)
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
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When love, with one another so
Interinanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
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We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For, th' atomies of which we grow,
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
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But O 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 sphere.
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We owe them thanks, because they thus,
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their forces, sense, to us.
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
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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.
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As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man:
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So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
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To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love revealed may look;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
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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.
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THE END
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