Air and Angels

By John Donne 1572–1631 John Donne

Twice or thrice had I lov'd 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,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did 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;

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 lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,

And so more steadily to have gone,

With wares which would sink admiration,

I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;

Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scatt'ring 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;

Just such disparity

As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,

'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

Biography

John Donne's standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in the present century. The history of Donne's reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In Donne's own day his poetry was highly prized . . .

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