John Donne - Delphi Poets Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 know not what,
Love these mix’d 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
    Interanimates 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 not we; we are
    Th’ intelligences, they the spheres.
    We owe them thanks, because they thus
    Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses’ force to us,
    Nor are dross to us, but allay.
    On man heaven’s influence works not so,
    But that it first imprints the air;
For 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
    To 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 reveal’d 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’re to bodies gone.

LOVE’S DEITY.
    I LONG to talk with some old lover’s ghost,
    Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
    Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
    I must love her that loves not me.
    Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,
    Nor he in his young godhead practised it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
    His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was; it cannot be
    Love, till I love her, who loves me.
    But every modern god will now extend
    His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
    All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O! were we waken’d by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
    I should love her, who loves not me.
    Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
    As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
    A deeper plague, to make her love me too;
Which, since she loves before, I’m loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
    If she whom I love, should love me.

LOVE’S DIET.
    TO what a cumbersome unwieldiness
And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,
    But that I did, to make it less,
    And keep it in proportion,
Give it a diet, made it feed upon
That which love worst endures, discretion
    Above one sigh a day I allow’d him not,
Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;
    And if sometimes by stealth he got
    A she sigh from my mistress’ heart,
And thought to feast upon that, I let him see
‘Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.
    If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so
With scorn and shame, that him it nourish’d not;
    If he suck’d hers, I let him know
    ‘Twas not a tear which he had got;
His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;
For eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.
    Whatever he would dictate I writ that,
But burnt her letters when