Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/266

 JOHN DONNE

And whilst our souls negotiate there,

We like sepulchral statues lay; All day the same our postures were,

And we said nothing, all the day. If any, so by love refined,

That he soul's language understood, And by good love were grown all mind,

Within convenient distance stood, He (though he knew not which soul spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take,

And part far purer than he came. This Ecstasy doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love, We see by thLs, it was not sex,

We see, we saw not what did move But as all several souls contain

Mixture of things, they know not what, Love, these mixed soulb doth mix again,

And makes both one, each this and that. A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the M?e (All which before was poor and scant)

Redoubles still, and multiplies. When love, with one another so

Interinanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

Defects of loneliness controls. We then, who are this new soul, know,

Of what we are composed and made, For th* Atomies of which we grow,

Are souls, whom no change can invade.

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