14577. (John Donne) The Selected Poetry of Donne [ed. Marius Bewley]

Donne is best when he writes of love or death, dullest when build­ing “meta­phys­i­cal” struc­tures or play­ing games with theology.

Where, like a pil­low on a bed,
A preg­nant bank swell’d up, to rest
The violet’s reclin­ing head,
Sat we two, one another’s best.
Our hands were firm­ly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring,
Our eye-beams twist­ed, and did thread
Our eyes, upon one double-string;
So to inter­graft 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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