The Ecstasy

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WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
⁠A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
⁠Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cemented
⁠By a fast balm, which thence did spring;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
⁠Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet
⁠Was all the means to make us one;
And pictures in our eyes to get
⁠Was all our propagation.

As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
⁠Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
⁠Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

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 this, 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 mix'd souls doth mix again,
⁠And makes both one, each this, and that.

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 so
⁠Interanimates 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.

But, O alas! so long, so far,
⁠Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we; we are
⁠Th' intelligences, they the spheres.

We owe them thanks, because they thus
⁠Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
⁠Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven's influence works not so,
⁠But that it first imprints the air;
For soul into the soul may flow,
⁠Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget
⁠Spirits, as like souls as it can;
Because such fingers need to knit
⁠That subtle knot, which makes us man;

So must pure lovers' souls descend
⁠To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
⁠Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so
⁠Weak men on love reveal'd may look;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
⁠But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,
⁠Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
⁠Small change when we're to bodies gone.

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