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 worship'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 subtile 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 loves sphere;
Just such disparity
As is twixt Air and Angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.

Added: Feb 20 2003 | Viewed: 2422 times | Comments (0)

Poet: John Donne
Poem: Air And Angels

Poem of the Day on:
Mar 26 2005
There are no comments for this poem. Why not be the first one to post something about it?

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Air And Angels, has not yet been commented on. You can click here to be the first to post a comment about it. Of course you can also always discuss poems by John Donne with others on the Poetry Connection poetry forum!