Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AIR [AIRE] AND ANGELS, by JOHN DONNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Twice or thrice had I loved thee Last Line: Twixt womens love, and means will ever bee. Variant Title(s): The Idea Realised | ||||||||
Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name, So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame, Angells affect us oft, and worship'd bee; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soule, whose child love is, Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe, More subtile then the parent is, Love must not be, but take a body too, And therefore what thou wert, and who, I bid Love aske, and now That it assume thy body, I allow, And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow. Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought, And so more steddily to have gone, With wares which would sinke admiration, I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught, Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke 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 Angell, face, and wings Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare, So thy love may be my loves spheare; Just such disparitie As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie, 'Twixt womens love, and means will ever bee. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A HYMN TO CHRIST, AT THE AUTHOR'S LAST GOING INTO GERMANY by JOHN DONNE A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER by JOHN DONNE A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW by JOHN DONNE A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY by JOHN DONNE A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING by JOHN DONNE A VALEDICTION: OF MY NAME IN THE WINDOW by JOHN DONNE A VALEDICTION: OF THE BOOKE by JOHN DONNE A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING by JOHN DONNE AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD: THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY by JOHN DONNE ELEGY: 11. THE BRACELET; UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS'S CHAIN by JOHN DONNE |
|