| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | Air and Angels |
| | | TWICE or thrice had I loved thee, | |
| Before I knew thy face or name; | |
| So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, | |
| Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be. | |
| Still when, to where thou wert, I came, | 5 |
| Some lovely glorious nothing did I 1 see. | |
| But since my soul, whose child love is, | |
| Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do, | |
| More subtle than the parent is | |
| Love must not be, but take a body too; | 10 |
| And therefore what thou wert, and who, | |
| I bid love ask, and now | |
| That it assume thy body, I allow, | |
| And fix itself in thy lips, eyes, 2 and brow. | |
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| Whilst thus to ballast love I thought, | 15 |
| And so more steadily to have gone, | |
| With wares which would sink admiration, | |
| I saw I had love’s pinnace overfraught; | |
| Thy every 3 hair for love to work upon | |
| Is much too much; some fitter must be sought; | 20 |
| For, nor in nothing, nor in things | |
| Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere; | |
| Then as an angel face and wings | |
| Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear, | |
| So thy love may be my love’s sphere; | 25 |
| Just such disparity | |
| As is ’twixt air’s 4 and angels’ purity, | |
| ’Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be. | |
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