THE BROKEN HEART. He is stark mad whoever says That he hath been in love an hour; But that it can in ten less space devour. Who will believe me if I swear That I have had the plague a year? Who would not laugh at me, if I should say Ah! what a trifle is a heart If once into Love's hands it come? All other griefs allow a part To other griefs, and ask themselves but some: He swallows us and never chaws: By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die; If 't were not so, what did become Of my heart when I first saw thee? I brought a heart into the room, But from the room I carried none with me: Mine would have taught thine heart to show At one first blow did shiver it as glass. 10 20 Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite, Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, tho' they do not unite: A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, A VALEDICTION, FORBIDDING MOURNING. As virtuous men pass mildly' away, To tell the laity our love. Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, But trepidation of the spheres, Tho' greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Of absence, 'cause it doth remove The thing which elemented it. Volume II. E 30 32 10 But we by' a love so far refin'd, Careless eyes, lips, and hands, to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, If they be two, they are two so Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show And tho' it in the centre sit, 20 WHE THE ECSTACY. HERE, like a pillow on a bed, The violet's declining head, Sate we on one another's breast Our hands were firmly cemented By a fast balm, which thence did spring, So to engraft our hands as yet And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation. As 'twixt two equal armies Fate Our souls (which, to advance our state, And, whilst our souls negotiate there, If any so by love refin'd That he souls' language understood,' He (tho' he knew not which soul spake, And part far purer than he came. Donne E ij IO 20 This Ecstacy doth unperplex (We said) and tell us what we lave; But as all several souls contain A single violet transplant, The strength, the colour, and the size, (All which before was poor and scant) Redoubles still and multiplies. When love with one another sa That abler soul, which thence doth flow, We then, who are this new soul, know Are soul, whom no change can invade. But, O, alas! so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They are ours, tho' not we; we are ३० 59 |