Air And Angels
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wice 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 worship'd be;Still when, to where thou wert, I came,Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.But since my soul, whose child love is,Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,More subtile 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 nowThat 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,Ev'ry thy hair for love to work uponIs much too much, some fitter must be sought;For, nor in nothing, nor in thingsExtreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;Then as an Angel, face, and wingsOf air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,So thy love may be my loves sphere;Just such disparityAs is twixt Air and Angels' purity,'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.
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