Air and Angels

by John Donne

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,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I 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;
⁠Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much; some fitter must be sought;
⁠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;
⁠Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.