1633

THE ECSTASY

by John Donne

THE ECSTASY -

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; -

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; -

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. -

As 'twixt two equal armies, Fate

Suspends uncertain victory,

Our souls, (which to advance their state,

Were gone out), hung 'twixt her, and me. -

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. -

If any, so by love refined,

That he soul's language understood,

And by good love were grown all mind,

Within convenient distance stood, -

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. -

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: -

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. -

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size,

(All which before was poor, and scant,)

Redoubles still, and multiplies. -

When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two souls,

That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

Defects of loneliness controls. -

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. -

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. -

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. -

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. -

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: -

So must pure lovers' souls descend

T' affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great prince in prison lies. -

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. -

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. - -