| TWICE or thrice had I loved thee, | |
| Before I knew thy face or name; | |
| So in a voice, so in a shapelesse flame, | |
| Angells affect us oft, and worship'd bee; | |
| Still when, to where thou wert, I came, | 5 |
| Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. | |
| But since my soule, whose child love is, | |
| Takes limmes of flesh, and else could nothing doe, | |
| More subtile then the parent is, | |
| Love must not be, but take a body too, | 10 |
| And therefore what thou wert, and who, | |
| I bid Love aske, and now | |
| That it assume thy body, I allow, | |
| And fixe it selfe in thy lip, eye, and brow. | |
| |
| Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought, | 15 |
| And so more steddily to have gone, | |
| With wares which would sinke admiration, | |
| I saw, I had loves pinnace overfraught, | |
| Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke upon | |
| Is much too much, some fitter must be sought; | 20 |
| For, nor in nothing, nor in things | |
| Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere; | |
| Then as an Angell, face, and wings | |
| Of aire, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare, | |
| So thy love may be my loves spheare; | 25 |
| Just such disparitie | |
| As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie, | |
| 'Twixt womens love, and mens will ever bee. |
