Air and Angels

by John Donne

　　 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.