John Donne Quotes on Love
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I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
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And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
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My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest, Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp North, without declining West? What ever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
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But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.
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And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the He and She.
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Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
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Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
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She is all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is.
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For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.
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The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.
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I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry.
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Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feigned deaths to die.
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When I died last, and dear, I die As often as from thee I go.
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Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone.
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Twice and thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name.
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'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise, because 'tis light? Did we lie down, because 'twas night? Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither Should in despite of light keep us together.
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All Kings, and all their favorites, All glory of honors, beauties, wits The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year, now, than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
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Send home my long strayed eyes to me, Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee.
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For I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.
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Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks.
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Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.
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Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.
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If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.
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Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes, upon one double string; So to entergraft our hands, as yet Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation.
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That subtle knot which makes us man: So must pure lovers' souls descend T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great Prince in prison lies.
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Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.
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I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born.
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To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love.
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A bracelet of bright hair about the bone.
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Take heed of loving me.
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So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away.
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Absence, hear thou my protestation Against thy strength, Distance, and length; Do what thou canst for alteration
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Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
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Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love.
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She, and comparisons are odious.
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Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
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The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests.
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O my America! my new-found land.
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Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my Newfoundland My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd, My mine of precious stones, my empery; How am I blest in thus discovering thee ! To enter in these bonds, is to be free ; Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.'