Sappho to Philaenis by John Donne — Read

Where is that holy fire, which verse is said / To have? Is that enchanting force decay'd? / Verse that draws nature's works from nature's law, / Thee, her best work, to her work cannot draw. / Have my tears quench'd my old poetic fire? / Why quench'd they not as well that of desire? / Thoughts, my mind's creatures, often are with thee, / But I, their maker, want their liberty. / Only thine image in my heart doth sit, / But that is wax, and fires environ it. / My fires have driven, thine have drawn it hence; / And I am robb'd of picture, heart, and sense. / Dwells with me still mine irksome memory, / Which, both to keep and lose, grieves equally. / That tells me how fair thou art; thou art so fair / As gods, when gods to thee I do compare, / Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see, / What things gods are, I say they're like to thee. / For if we justly call each silly man / A little world, what shall we call thee then? / Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair, / As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are; / But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only / Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye. / Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never, / As thou wast, art, and O, mayst thou be ever. / Here lovers swear in their idolatry, / That I am such; but grief discolours me. / And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove / My beauty, and make me unworthy of thy love. / Plays some soft boy with thee, O, there wants yet / A mutual feeling which should sweeten it. / His chin, a thorny, hairy unevenness / Doth threaten, and some daily change possess. / Thy body is a natural paradise, / In whose self, unmanured, all pleasure lies, / Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then / Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man? / Men leave behind them that which their sin shows, / And are as thieves traced, which rob when it snows. / But of our dalliance no more signs there are, / Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air; / And between us all sweetness may be had, / All, all that nature yields, or art can add. / My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two / But so, as thine from one another do, / And, O, no more; the likeness being such, / Why should they not alike in all parts touch? / Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies; / Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs? / Likeness begets such strange self-flattery, / That touching myself all seems done to thee. / Myself I embrace, and mine own hands I kiss, / And amorously thank myself for this. / Me, in my glass, I call thee; but alas, / When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass. / O cure this loving madness, and restore / Me to thee, thee my half, my all, my more. / So may thy cheeks' red outwear scarlet dye, / And their white, whiteness of the Galaxy; / So may thy mighty, amazing beauty move / Envy in all women, and in all men love; / And so be change and sickness far from thee, / As thou by coming near keep'st them from me.