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— William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

…

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noun

One who, or that which, accelerates.

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Love's Exchange

42 lines
John Donne·1572–1631
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OVE, any devil else but youWould for a given soul give something too.At court your fellows every dayGive th' art of rhyming, huntsmanship, or play,For them which were their own before;Only I have nothing, which gave more,But am, alas ! by being lowly, lower. I ask no dispensation now,To falsify a tear, or sigh, or vow;I do not sue from thee to drawA non obstante on nature's law;These are prerogatives, they inhereIn thee and thine; none should forswearExcept that he Love's minion were. Give me thy weakness, make me blind,Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and mind;Love, let me never know that thisIs love, or, that love childish is;Let me not know that others knowThat she knows my paines, lest that soA tender shame make me mine own new woe. If thou give nothing, yet thou 'rt just,Because I would not thy first motions trust;Small towns which stand stiff, till great shotEnforce them, by war's law condition not;Such in Love's warfare is my case;I may not article for grace,Having put Love at last to show this face. This face, by which he could commandAnd change th' idolatry of any land,This face, which, wheresoe'er it comes,Can call vow'd men from cloisters, dead from tombs,And melt both poles at once, and storeDeserts with cities, and make moreMines in the earth, than quarries were before. For this Love is enraged with me,Yet kills not; if I must example beTo future rebels, if th' unbornMust learn by my being cut up and torn,Kill, and dissect me, Love; for thisTorture against thine own end is;Rack'd carcasses make ill anatomies.
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