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. -------John Donne