The Extasie - John Donne

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,

A Pregnant banke swel'd up, to rest

The violets reclining head,

Sat we two, one anothers best.

Our hands were firmely cimented

With a fast balme, which thence did spring,

Our EYE-BEAMS TWISTED, AND DID THRED

OUR EYES UPON ONE DOUBLE STRING

So to'entergraft our hands, as yet

Was all the meanes to make us one,

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As 'twixt two equall Armies, Fate

Suspends uncertaine victorie,

OUR SOULS,

(WHICH TO ADVANCE THEIR STATE WERE GONE OUT,)

hung 'twixt her, and mee.

And whil'st our soules negotiate there,

Wee like sepulchrall statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

AND WE SAID NOTHING, ALL THE DAY

IF ANY, SO BY LOVE REFINE'D

THAT HE SOULES LANGUAGE UNDERSTOOD

AND BY GOOD LOVE WERE GROWEN ALL MINDE,

Within convenient distance stood,

He (though he knew not which soule spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same)

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part farre purer then he came.

This Extasie doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love,

WE SEE BY THIS, IT WAS NOT SEXE,

Wee see, we saw not what did move:

But as all severall soules containe

Mixture of things, they know not what,

Love, these mixt soules, doth mixe againe,

And makes both one, each this and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size,

(All which before was poore, and scant,)

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two soules,

That abler soule, which thence doth flow,

Defects of lonelinesse controules.

WEE THEN WHO ARE THIS NEW SOULE, know,

Of what we are compos'd, and made,

For, th'Atomies of which we grow,

Are soules, whom no change can invade.

But O alas, so long, so farre

OUR BODIES WHY DO WEE FOREBEARE?

THEY ARE OURS, THOU THEY ARE NOT WEE,

Wee are The intelligences, they the spheare.

We owe them thankes, because they thus,

Did us, to us, at first convay,

Yeelded their forces, sense, to us,

Nor are drosse to us, but allay.

On man heavens influence workes not so,

But that it first imprints the ayre,

Soe soule into the soule may flow,

Though it to body first repaire.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirits, as like soules as it can,

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtile knot, which makes us man:

So must pure lovers soules descend

T'affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great Prince in prison lies.

To'our bodies turne wee then, that so

Weake men on love reveal'd may looke;

Loves mysteries in soules doe grow,

But yet the body is his booke.

And if some lover, such as wee,

Have heard this dialogue of one,

Let him still marke us, he shall see

Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.